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Simon Waters wrote: > Robin Cornelius wrote: >> They have drafted a redistribution licence but I am unhappy about a >> couple of points. So at this stage can anyone recommend other packages >> that have these kind of you can redistribute but not take apart/ >> disassemble/reverse engineer type of licences I can compare too. My >> current primary reference is the nvidia-glx package in debian/non-free >> which has almost the kind of licence I would expect for this situation. >> But some other references are worth considering. > > IANAL > > I believe you can't outlaw reverse engineering for purposes of > interoperability. I thought the DMCA has a dam fine attempt at doing this across the pond. > > You can write it into the license, but those clauses are not enforceable > on anyone residing in the EU, or the USA, and probably most other places. > > Comes down to what it is they are trying to protect here, and the need > for lawyers. > > Unless there is specific hardware involved, i.e. this is general purpose > software, they have copyright, and the most you can do with copyright is > remove peoples right to make copies of it or derivative works. Well the software is client server software (and we are talking clients here), and with out the server its pretty much useless and would serve no useful function at all. So I guess they could dictate who connects to there network (as you do need a registered account). As for reverse engineering, there are patents involved so a replacement product developed from scratch or even a derivative work could be in breach of that but that's a whole separate sticky mess. As for what they are trying to protect, well I can't see anything in the client that needs protection. As they have a patent over the one of the most important pieces they may as just as well release the code (and there is reference material for the patent including an example of how to implement it in C, that is publicly available). The company primary market is a service provider, so I would have though maximising the availability of the client would be a very good thing. The other parts of the client appear to be pretty standard and wildly available protocols. I think most of this is blind corporate panic at not really understanding open-source and how to embrace it for there own benefit. The crux of what they are currently trying to do is to allow it to be copied but not to allow derivative works to be created. I just hope we can move past all this in to something that can be called opensource as every one involved would benefit. Robin
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