-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 [To: flac-dev@lists.sourceforge.net, mcf-general@lists.sourceforge.net] On Thu, 21 Nov 2002, Drew Hess wrote:> One case I can think of where a commercial vendor has taken a BSD-licensed > protocol and twisted it with proprietary changes is Microsoft+Kerberos, > but if I recall correctly, they eventually caved in to pressure and either > released their changes or made their implementation compatible with the > reference implementation.This is interesting. I've never though of using copyright to attempt to prevent embrace and extend ploys by commercial venders. But in the end, it seems futile. A big company like Microsoft has enough resources to reimplement libFLAC should they wish. Then they can embrace and extend without worry about copyright. So I would recommend a Public Domain ``license''. I really don't understand why that choice isn't more popular among developers. - -- Russell O'Connor <http://www.math.berkeley.edu/~roconnor/> ``[Law enforcement officials] suggested that the activists were stopped not because their names are on the list, but because their names resemble those of suspected criminals or terrorists.'' -- SFGate.com -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.2.1 (SunOS) iQCVAwUBPd1ANE0+aO5oRkNZAQILpwP/e9b19hXt9DOX1P2yMsTPMf9hBw1Py3Yj bpWbszaahRIgCoNg89G5htjENxdE8Apl6b4ETM3S8e5UR8XCLwDQbbPXByLoaew8 r0skUW8HBZQPbzj1pQExBl/DQ+gqA2JeLp8mIZisvdHJVT5Rbn7anUrCV6tlbdWw 0Zb7reLQhMk=bIQ+ -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----
On Thu, Nov 21, 2002 at 12:20:53PM -0800, Russell O'Connor wrote:> But in the end, it seems futile. A big company like Microsoft has enough > resources to reimplement libFLAC should they wish. Then they can embrace > and extend without worry about copyright. > > So I would recommend a Public Domain ``license''. I really don't > understand why that choice isn't more popular among developers.Releasing a program into the public domain means giving up copyright entirely, so that the author has no control whatsoever over how it is distributed. For example, the BSD license allows all of the same applications that would be possible with public domain software, but requires that 1) the copyright notice remain intact, and 2) the names of the contributors and the university may not be freely used to promote derived products. -- - mdz
En r?ponse ? Matt Zimmerman <mdz@debian.org>:> On Thu, Nov 21, 2002 at 12:20:53PM -0800, Russell O'Connor wrote: > > > But in the end, it seems futile. A big company like Microsoft has > enough > > resources to reimplement libFLAC should they wish. Then they can > embrace > > and extend without worry about copyright. > > > > So I would recommend a Public Domain ``license''. I really don't > > understand why that choice isn't more popular among developers. > > Releasing a program into the public domain means giving up copyright > entirely, so that the author has no control whatsoever over how it is > distributed. For example, the BSD license allows all of the same > applications that would be possible with public domain software, but > requires that 1) the copyright notice remain intact, and 2) the names of > the > contributors and the university may not be freely used to promote > derived > products.BTW, what are the concerns here ? You want one library to support the FLAC on *all* platforms ? Or you just want to make sure that other libraries comply with the format specified (?) in the main library ? For the first case, the license matters. For the second it doesn't. And BTW, Microsoft used some BSD programs (FTP client among others) instead of making the code from scratch. Idem with MSIE which started with the Mosaic code.