Call to Power 2 license
So, I noticed CTP2 source was released a while back, and pondered creating a package alongside the port efforts. However, I took a look at the license: http://www.apolyton.net/csd.php and cringed. Is there anything that this license *does* allow you do to with respect to modification and redistribution? Aren't the people porting and improving it just wasting their time? -- Ryan Underwood, <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> signature.asc Description: Digital signature
pvpgn ITP
Hi! I recently ITPed pvpgn (#224163) and would like to ensure there's no legal problem adding it to Debian. The background: - pvpgn is a fork of the (dead) bnetd project. - bnetd was sued by Blizzard on basis of the DMCA, the current legal status is undetermined - in Debian, we already have packages of bnetd, maintained by Dennis L. Clark (CCed). I think there should be no problem, specialy since pvpgn hasn't recieved any notice from Blizzard, and they're hosted in Germany where the DMCA doesn't apply. I'd appreciate advice though. Is it ok for main or should it be uploaded to non-us? -- Robert Millan "[..] but the delight and pride of Aule is in the deed of making, and in the thing made, and neither in possession nor in his own mastery; wherefore he gives and hoards not, and is free from care, passing ever on to some new work." -- J.R.R.T., Ainulindale (Silmarillion)
Re: Call to Power 2 license
On Sun, Dec 28, 2003 at 01:28:56PM -0600, Ryan Underwood wrote: > So, I noticed CTP2 source was released a while back, and pondered > creating a package alongside the port efforts. However, I took a look > at the license: > > http://www.apolyton.net/csd.php > > and cringed. Is there anything that this license *does* allow you do to > with respect to modification and redistribution? No. All you can do under this license is create entirely new game content and distribute it for free - nothing else. You can't even mirror the source; if they decide to stop distributing it, or the company goes under, it's gone forever. This is a "look, but don't touch" license. > Aren't the people > porting and improving it just wasting their time? Yup. They're also potential targets for criminal lawsuits in the US and civil ones in most of the world. Stay as far away from this as you can. -- .''`. ** Debian GNU/Linux ** | Andrew Suffield : :' : http://www.debian.org/ | `. `' | `- -><- | signature.asc Description: Digital signature
Re: OT: Database protection and why European law is different
On Tue, Dec 23, 2003 at 01:48:19PM -0800, Don Armstrong wrote: > On Tue, 23 Dec 2003, Edmund GRIMLEY EVANS wrote: > > Don Armstrong <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>: > >> First, since the frequency can be construed as a fact, and therefore > >> is not copyrightable work of authorship, I'm not particularly > >> concerned by this. [If there is a jurisdiction which does construe > >> mere compendiums of facts as a work of authorship, we could perhaps > >> reconsider this.] > > > > The European Union has a Database Directive which grants monopoly > > rights to the creators of databases, so the prohibition above, which > > doesn't mention copyright, could still be effective. > > Bummer. Now the EU gets stuck with allowing copyrights on the various > Genome sequences. I guess the phenomenon of governmentally sanctioned > rape of the populace is spreading. > > I guess that is part of the reason why the EU donated huge amounts of public funding to the parts of the human genome project that insisted on the equivalent of free software licensing (with non-DFSG variations appropriate to the field). See e.g. http://www.hgsc.bcm.tmc.edu/projects/conditions_for_use.html Also note the much shorter duration of database rights (15 years for databases, life+70 years for copyright). In contrast geographical maps etc. enjoy the full copyright duration. Oh and do recall, that in European legal thinking, copyright is not a government granted monopoly, but the protection of the Human Right (nothing less!) of the author to own his/her own creation and get paid for its use. To European lawmakers any restriction of the copyright must come with a very strong argument for its necessity for the common good, and often with taxpayer compensation of the authors whose property is being taken away by the government. The fact that most authors sell their work to employers and publishers is recognized and the laws regulate both the terms of employment and help ensure that the work product is valuable to the employers as a precondition for them to have any reason to hire and pay authors in the first place. Keeping in mind that these are the legal theories behind copyright in large parts of Europe will hopefully help U.S. readers of this list to more clearly understand why laws are so different over here, and why license terms and fair use work differently in Europe. IANAL, TINLA. This message is given as part of a public academic or political debate. It carries neither the obligations of legal advice nor is it claimed to meet any standards of scientific work. Just my 2 EuroCents Jakob Link of interest: http://www.un.org/Overview/rights.html Note Article 27(2) -- This message is hastily written, please ignore any unpleasant wordings, do not consider it a binding commitment, even if its phrasing may indicate so. Its contents may be deliberately or accidentally untrue. Trademarks and other things belong to their owners, if any.
Re: SRFI copyright license
On Wed, Dec 24, 2003 at 02:16:45PM -0800, Don Armstrong wrote:
> On Wed, 24 Dec 2003, Brian T. Sniffen wrote:
> > I strongly disagree: the license is just saying that you can't
> > publish a derivative work of SRFI X as SRFI X, and are otherwise free
> > to derive works.
>
> Could you step through your logic of that, without relying on the FAQ?
IANAL, TINLA, this is academic debate only.
I am not Mr. Sniffen, but here is my idea of how this *could* be
interpreted as a free license. The main trick is to distinguish
between the original full text SRFI ("the document") and the
free software (document that excerpts or derives from the
document).
Step 1: Someone includes (all or part of) the SRFI in an actual
scheme implementation (buggy or not).
Because this Scheme implementation (as a whole) is a document
that assists in the implementation of the SRFI it can excerpt
from the SRFI without limitation. Because the permission to do
so is explicit and does not rely on fair use claims, a 100%
excerpt is OK.
Step 2: Someone (possibly the same person) modifies the part of
the scheme implementation that came from the SRFI to fix an
implementation bug or adapt to the interfaces of the rest of
the implementation.
This still assists in the implementation of the SRFI and is
still permitted. The changed parts are either derived from the
SRFI (which is explicitly permitted) or no longer derived from
it (in which case that part of the SRFI is no longer excerpted
into that implementation assisting document).
Step 3: Someone (possibly the same person) modifies the part of
the scheme implementation that came from the SRFI to
deliberately no longer implement what the SRFI specifies.
This case is more tricky. One way around it may be to add
comments like
// SRFI x specifies the following behavior ... which is not
//as good as the following behavior, which this program
//uses even though it is not in accordance with SRFI x.
And claim that this makes the text an explanation of the SRFI.
Another way is to claim that the SRFI license explicitly permits
placing the derived document (the original implementation that
copied the SRFI mostly verbatim) under a different, directly
DFSG free license such as BSD or GPL, and that once this is
done, the SRFI license cannot block further modification under
the new license.
Jakob
--
This message is hastily written, please ignore any unpleasant wordings,
do not consider it a binding commitment, even if its phrasing may
indicate so. Its contents may be deliberately or accidentally untrue.
Trademarks and other things belong to their owners, if any.
Re: pvpgn ITP
On Monday December 29 2003 05:09, Robert Millan wrote: > I think there should be no problem, specialy since pvpgn hasn't recieved > any notice from Blizzard, and they're hosted in Germany where the DMCA > doesn't apply. (...) DMCA doesn't apply there, but the local flavour of EUCD (European Union Copyright Directive) does, which is, if I recall correctly, even worse than the DMCA... Mike
