<< I believe any media or other content (whether separate files or not) distributed with the application and/or required to make it function fully would need to be licensed in a GPL compatible license.>>
Hi Monte, I believe (!) that this belief is kind of a key issue in attempting to identify the scope of GPL for livecode stacks and their content. I invite all of you (all) to , put on the legal hat for a while and walk into the following story : GPL is a very special kind of automatic contract that is attached to a piece of work and which describes what the receiver of that piece of work can or not do with it. As such it is a very special contract in the world of contracts because it does not require the agreement of the receiver, which is "implied" by the act of receiving. So it is not the strongest type of contract. Now and this is key to understand : a contract is itself a piece of work that exist within a certain legal framework namely "the law" (the legal codes etc & jurisprudence). In that framework, there is a hierarchy of codes : from constitution at the top to applications provisions down the road. it's kind of like in Object programming. Except that you don't ask; Top objects set the law. Whatever you try to do at the lower level. Contracts that you can write must obey to the general rules. Some of these rules are "imperative" no matter what the intent of a contractor may be there are things that they just cannot do. Among these, lies copyright. Copyright is a strong piece of legal meat which has imperative laws that no one can circunvent. And that is particularly the case in France/Europe which has a strong implementation of droits d'auteurs. Anglos saxon copyright is much weaker on some points. Copyrights has been structured according to various protected activities from "fine art" painting, music, writing to "less fine art" like photo graphics, sounds and lastly to "coding". Each of these activities/objects have some special variations of rules which have organized themselves over centuries. A GPL license can set rules regarding it's own original object like "thou shall re-distribute me, in whole or in part, with the same rights you received". This can be symbolized by : I received package CODE-A, i must re-distribute CODE-A with the same rights i received. The GPL license has extended the law in enforcing that all direct derivated work be treated at par-level to the main body of work received, without limit in time or scope or locality. I received package CODE-A + I add package CODE-B which is of the same nature than package A, namely CODE, and strongly interconnected to A, than I have to re-distribute with same rights as CODE-A. I say stretched out already because one strong legal principle that have evolved over centuries is the principle that you should not engage futures for an un-limited scope. Put into other words : a contract I make with any publisher that all my future work will have to be signed with him without time limit is VOID by law. e.i not acceptable. So in the GPL case, this principle is clearly put aside (there is no time limit or territorial limit) and this has been accepted, I guess lawers try to be practical somehow. But GPL license will not be able to act by magic on something else like a picture, which is of a different legal nature governed by its own set of legal rules which are "imperative" to the GPL. That would be an extension of the extension, reaching limits of the existing set of legal fundamentals. I received package CODE-A + I add package CODE-B [of same nature & intimitaly interconnected] + I add package IMAGE-C [of a different nature, somehow connected, but not intimately] => than I have created a COMPOUND package legally because CODE and IMAGE are not governed by the same legal set of rules. All the code part A+B is governed by GPL fine, but all the IMAGE-C part is governed by whatever copyright or CC or else. Now the FFS (and it seems livecode counsels) tries to blow away the difference between CODE and IMAGES and so on (including all media types and all activities protected) and impose a kind of over-ruling of CODE over everything else. Is that defendable? wise? I do not think this would be wise because it would only favor even more the big big super firms in asserting their rights over everything in that world. It seems a good thing to me to keeps things separated. Alphabet already nearly owns the alphabet some way. So far, they got a clear first ruling against that in the wordpress case. And javascript clarified the case with a specific extension making it clear that an HTML page that calls a javascript function is not regarded as derivated art of javascript! (the case would have been very difficult to defend). Livecode could well do the same. I hope that these precisions will help all of us better grasp the legal background of the issue of how GPL applies to Livecode stacks and their contents. Robert Of course, that is no legal device and just the point of view of a "bienveillant" and honorable member of that list delivered here as "food for thoughts" in accordance with the objectives of that list. Monte Goulding-2 wrote >> On 2 Mar 2016, at 4:35 PM, J. Landman Gay < > jacque@ > > wrote: >> >> Does that sound right to all you guys who read up on this stuff? > > I believe any media or other content (whether separate files or not) > distributed with the application and/or required to make it function fully > would need to be licensed in a GPL compatible license. > > Cheers > > Monte > _______________________________________________ > use-livecode mailing list > use-livecode@.runrev > Please visit this url to subscribe, unsubscribe and manage your > subscription preferences: > http://lists.runrev.com/mailman/listinfo/use-livecode -- View this message in context: http://runtime-revolution.278305.n4.nabble.com/Open-source-closed-source-and-the-value-of-code-tp4701649p4701951.html Sent from the Revolution - User mailing list archive at Nabble.com. _______________________________________________ use-livecode mailing list use-livecode@lists.runrev.com Please visit this url to subscribe, unsubscribe and manage your subscription preferences: http://lists.runrev.com/mailman/listinfo/use-livecode
