From owner-freebsd-chat@FreeBSD.ORG Mon Jan 26 11:27:24 2004 Return-Path: Delivered-To: freebsd-chat@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.FreeBSD.org (mx1.freebsd.org [216.136.204.125]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id BCCE316A4CE for ; Mon, 26 Jan 2004 11:27:24 -0800 (PST) Received: from rwcrmhc12.comcast.net (rwcrmhc12.comcast.net [216.148.227.85]) by mx1.FreeBSD.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id C960043D3F for ; Mon, 26 Jan 2004 11:27:11 -0800 (PST) (envelope-from underway@comcast.net) Received: from localhost.localdomain (c-24-17-47-224.client.comcast.net[24.17.47.224]) by comcast.net (rwcrmhc12) with ESMTP id <20040126192711014004nd0pe>; Mon, 26 Jan 2004 19:27:11 +0000 Received: from localhost.localdomain (localhost [127.0.0.1]) i0QJQTYS080590; Mon, 26 Jan 2004 11:26:29 -0800 (PST) (envelope-from underway@comcast.net) Received: (from jojo@localhost) by localhost.localdomain (8.12.10/8.12.10/Submit) id i0QJQNpL080589; Mon, 26 Jan 2004 11:26:23 -0800 (PST) (envelope-from underway@comcast.net) To: des@des.no (=?iso-8859-1?q?Dag-Erling_Sm=F8rgrav?=) References: <20040125195023.GA2469@online.fr> From: underway@comcast.net (Gary W. Swearingen) Date: Mon, 26 Jan 2004 11:26:23 -0800 In-Reply-To: ( =?iso-8859-1?q?Dag-Erling_Sm=F8rgrav's_message_of?= "Mon, 26 Jan 2004 13:16:34 +0100") Message-ID: <3ek73eqzog.73e@mail.comcast.net> User-Agent: Gnus/5.1002 (Gnus v5.10.2) XEmacs/21.4 (Portable Code, berkeley-unix) MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit cc: chat@freebsd.org Subject: Re: New Open Source License: Single Supplier Open Source License X-BeenThere: freebsd-chat@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.1 Precedence: list List-Id: Non technical items related to the community List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Mon, 26 Jan 2004 19:27:24 -0000 des@des.no (Dag-Erling Smørgrav) writes: > No. The right to modify etc. that the law grants you cannot be > repealed by the license; if the license says you can't modify or > reverse-engineer the software (for your own use), the license is wrong > and unenforceable. Likewise if it says you can't publish reviews or > benchmarks without the author's permission. The right to modify etc. that the law grants you is extremely limited; the law gives almost all of modification rights to the copyright owner. The limited rights were late additions to the copyright statute (17 USC 117) and a few courts have invalidated some aspects of the statutes, but it is not a settled matter. DMCA made some of that moot, reverse-engineering included, IIRC, with courts bowing to the clear intent of the Legislature that IP owners have control of how their property is used. The few limited rights relate to adapting software to enable it's as-intended usage on one's computers. (It's bad law, too narrow, yet too imprecise, seeming to be a poor attempt to put common usage in statute, relying on people's good sense to avoid litigation over it.) I haven't heard of any support for your last claim, with courts carving further such exceptions to the ability of parties to choose the terms of their own contracts. Generally, a license can have an an enforceable requirement that the licensee wear red shirts on Tuesdays, if that's what the two parties involved have agreed upon. I do recognize that some state commercial laws have some exceptions to this common contract law thinking, but I haven't heard that any mention software reviewing. And references? But even things allowed by law (fair use or otherwise) may be "prohibited" by licenses, as long as the licensor still has anything to license. Fair use law says that I can use one line from your program, but a license to use a whole work may be conditioned on my agreement to not use even one line from your program. Now I know some courts have tried to say this sort of thing is an attempt by state (contract) law to "exempt" federal (copyright) law, but AFAIK, that strange theory is going nowhere, and one shouldn't depend on it. (The fact that federal law allows one to wear a red shirt doesn't mean that a license can't prevent one from wearing one as a term of the license, for another example.)