[asterisk-biz] Ribbit.com ?

[Trixter aka Bret McDanel]

On Tue, 2007-12-18 at 22:57 +0200, Zoa wrote:
> Yes, if they keep that inside the company yes, as soon as it leaves the 
> company (customers for example) it changes the situation

I really get off JIAX here, and more into the base laws, from a US
perspective.  Because the GPL relies on a certain base of law to be
effectual it may or may not be the same in all jurisdictions.  As a
result YMMV.

But only to those customers, they have no obligation to release.  There
are also ways of using gpl stuff and mixing it with gpl incompatible
stuff such that it does not violate the license, even if distributed.
This is something that new gpl variant tries to address.

If you connect over a socket then the gpl does not infect the program
that is at the other end of that socket.  This kinda has to be since you
cant enforce gpl licensing over sockets, think of a web browser/server
situation.  You could provide enough logic in the gpl side to just talk
to the non gpl stuff.  Then if it does get distributed it doesnt matter
because the important stuff is sequestered.

Now in all fairness, this isnt just a deceitful trick, freeswitch.org
uses this to talk to spandsp (GPL only).  Steve fully understands the
limits and benefits of the gpl so he doesnt argue that its unfair, and
is fully aware that we do this and has contributed verbally (although
does not contribute code) to the project.  This enables freeswitch (MPL
1.1) to use spandsp (GPL) and everyone is happy.

There are those that claim that you cannot mix gpl *compatible* software
with their gpl product, and will argue tooth and nail that a bsd module
for example cannot be mixed, when it would only matter at distribution
time.

There are also other factors, the GPLs parasitic license infection (it
propagates like a virus why not refer to it like one?) only applies if
there is a combined work distributed (at which point it takes over
entirely and completely while the works are distributed together, once
separated or if never distributed it has no effect.  It also only works
on copyrighted works, and the 'derived' part of it is based in copyright
law.  

The GPL can only protect that which is copyrightable, so lets look at
what that means as well 
http://www.uspto.gov/go/com/doc/ipnii/ipnii.doc
>From this provision, the courts have derived three basic requirements
for copyright protection -- originality, creativity and fixation.50

      The requirements of originality and creativity are derived from
the statutory qualification that copyright protection extends only to
"original works of authorship."51  To be original, a work merely must be
one of independent creation -- i.e., not copied from another.  There is
no requirement that the work be novel (as in patent law), unique or
ingenious.  To be creative, there must only be a modicum of creativity.
The level required is exceedingly low; "even a slight amount will
suffice."52


According to http://www.uspto.gov/smallbusiness/copyrights/faq.html#5
copyright isnt international, and the gpl is just a use license that
says that you can use the copyrighted work, however if the copyright is
invalid then there is a potential argument that the license is not
valid, without a valid copyright the person is free to do with it how
they see fit.  Although resending that new work back to its place or
origin (or somewhere that has a treaty) may result in potential
problems, although in the case of open source software its hard to show
a loss by someone else using it in this way, which in America at least
makes it harder to sue.  Now if you dual license you can easily show a
loss.

I also got bored writing this, and decided that I would search no
further for a cite, but I do know that there are 4 criteria used in the
US to classify something as derived, one of them is the substantial
amount of included original copyrighted work.  This is something the FSF
does not want you to know about.  They want you to think that if you
include anything, say 1 line of code, then the entire program becomes
GPLed (that is in their FAQ) but the USPTO claims that courts in the US
have ruled differently.  This would include the quantity of code
compared to say a library (especially if the lib is stripped down to be
only what you need, making it proportionally smaller) as well as include
files.  If its not a substantial amount then it doesnt matter, and
generally in any non-trivial program, including a header file would not
be enough, again YMMV.  This is totally contrary to what the FSF claims
but it is what the courts claim, and when an action happens, it may
happen in teh court of the FSF (where zealots DDoS your site for
example, which has happened in the past) as well as the court of law.

Another of the 4 is the commercial use of the work, this is generally
what gives school teachers the ability to xerox copyrighted passages of
books for use in the classroom.  While its not an absolute exception, it
does generally give a lot more liberty.

-- 
Trixter http://www.0xdecafbad.com     Bret McDanel
Belfast +44 28 9099 6461        US +1 516 687 5200
http://www.trxtel.com the phone company that pays you!