PDF: Law For Computer Scientists And Other Folk https://academic.oup.com/book/33735
On Wednesday, December 13, 2023 at 5:54:33 AM UTC-5 Dima Pasechnik wrote: > On Tue, Dec 12, 2023 at 1:58 PM Tim Daly <[email protected]> wrote: > > > > This link raises the issue of developer liability, especially in the E.U. > > > https://blog.hansenpartnership.com/solving-the-looming-developer-liability-problem/ > > It's about a UK court case. UK has left EU a while ago :-) > > And the court case is by someone with very deep pockets suing people > they allege have control over Bitcoin wallets or something. > > IMHO UK courts are willing to take any silly business case, you'd just > have to pay, a lot... > > > > > If the software provides a method of attacking some business > > the developers might be liable for damages. > > it's like a robbed bank suing a gun manufacturer, demanding it > provided a feature disabling its guns > in the bank's buildings... > > > > > > One route, for example, might be to exploit the X11 or other socket-based > > code to allow network attacks. The defensive measure would be to have a > > cryptographic handshake between the interpreter and the X11 code. There > > are many other exploit paths available. > > > > This is only one of the rising legal problems. Another one is that the > E.U. > > is debating the question of whether software requires a "bill of > materials" > > which tracks what software was / is used as part of the delivery. > > Once the legal system is broken, you are never safe, full stop. > > > > > > Tim > > > > > > On Friday, December 8, 2023 at 2:40:05 PM UTC-5 Tim Daly wrote: > >> > >> I am not a lawyer either but as far as I understand it copyright law > >> varies from country to country and is covered by treaty. All of that > >> is "way above my pay grade". > >> > >> Despite having authored a reasonable bit of the code I claim no > >> copyright. In the U.S. I believe authored works are "born copyrighted". > >> > >> I tried to be very careful about including any and all copyright text > >> for any piece of software ever used. Most of the law is intended to > >> allow people to sue. I don't want to play that game. Axiom trademark > >> protection requirements are painful enough and make me look like > >> "the bad guy" because I'm required to take action. Sigh. > >> > >> Lawyers have spent lifetimes arguing over a single copyright like > >> GNU. I'm pretty sure I don't understand any of it. > >> > >> Ralf writes: > >> "I would like that the years are specified clearly. For example, the > >> last line in src/etc/copyright just says > >> > >> Portions Copyright (c) Renaud Rioboo and the University Paris 6. > >> > >> but give no starting and end year and no license part." > >> > >> Perhaps Renaud used some resources from his University > >> such as a University computer. If so then the University Paris 6 > >> probably requires their copyright to be stated. Check with your > >> University legal department if you use their servers to host or > >> develop code at the University. Using their resources makes > >> them liable. > >> > >> In a copyright dispute the goal is to get money so the University > >> is likely to be a party to a suit. When I worked at City College of > >> New York I explicitly included language in my job description > >> saying that the University had no claim to Axiom. I developed > >> on my own equipment and time. I hosted axiom-developer.org > >> on a server under my desk at home. I kept the same setup > >> when I worked at CMU. > >> > >> I have no idea what French copyright law allows or requires. > >> In the U.S. I believe there is no requirement for year notation. > >> Also copyright in the U.S. extends from creation until > >> 70 years beyond the death of the author. > >> > >> It seems to me the safest course of action is to treat any > >> legal text anywhere as "binary code" and not try to interpret it, > >> delete it, modify it, or bury it. I added the )copyright command. > >> > >> Just to see how bad things can get: > >> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SCO%E2%80%93Linux_disputes > >> > >> Tim > >> > >> > >> On Friday, December 8, 2023 at 9:09:35 AM UTC-5 [email protected] > wrote: > >>> > >>> On 12/8/23 14:39, Qian Yun wrote: > >>> > I just realized that there is also this file: "src/etc/copyright". > >>> > >>> Pffff... > >>> > >>> As always, IANAL. Additionally I can only guess what "copyright" > >>> actually means. German law distiguishes between "Urheberrecht" and > >>> "Nutzungsrecht". The Urheberrecht basically says something about the > >>> creator of some work, the Nutzungsrecht says something about what can > be > >>> done with the work. That looks like a relatively clear distinction. > >>> So basically all contributors to FriCAS can count as "Urheber" > (creator) > >>> of the work (FriCAS) and by German law one cannot give the fact that > >>> he/she is the "Urheber" (in other words no German can put something > into > >>> "public domain"). As the creator of some work one has the exclusive > >>> "Nutzungsrecht" (right to use the work). By a license one can allow > >>> others certain rights to use, distribute, copy (or whatever) the work. > >>> > >>> As far as I understand the american copyright is somewhat incompatible > >>> with the above view. What one usually sees is a copyright note and at > >>> the same time some text (list the BSD clauses) that say something about > >>> what rights some (different from the original creators) person gets for > >>> the "work". And that is called "LICENSE". Sigh! > >>> > >>> I think the way we do it now with having a LICENSE file at the root of > >>> the repo and src/etc/copyright is OK for me, but I can also imagine > that > >>> we just have a COPYRIGHT file at the root that is somehow like > >>> src/etc/copyright (i.e. with portions copyright messages and the > >>> respective license that the original copyright holders distributed with > >>> the software). (All other license and copyright files should be > removed, > >>> because they get included into COPYRIGHT.) However, I would like that > >>> the years are specified clearly. For example, the last line in > >>> src/etc/copyright just says > >>> > >>> Portions Copyright (c) Renaud Rioboo and the University Paris 6. > >>> > >>> but give no starting and end year and no license part. > >>> > >>> Ralf > >>> > > -- > > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google > Groups "FriCAS - computer algebra system" group. > > To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send > an email to [email protected]. > > To view this discussion on the web visit > https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/fricas-devel/958b0d0b-a21f-4a68-8fc7-6e8c7dfbaa7an%40googlegroups.com > . > -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "FriCAS - computer algebra system" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/fricas-devel/5e9d0ad6-bdf5-4ee8-850a-43f80967be79n%40googlegroups.com.
