[sldev] Re: [PROTOCOL] Protocol Documentation

[dirk husemann]

Taran Rampersad wrote:
> Zha Ewry wrote:
>> This was the point I was on at office hours yesterday. For better, or
>> worse, GPL is an impediment. It is fine for people to say "GPL
>> doesn't stop you from looking at the code." On a personal level, I
>> tend to understand, and maybe even agree with that premise. On a
>> pragmatic level, and having dealt with IP lawyers, on a regular basis
>> for a long time, the actual. real world, non idealistic effect of the
>> GPL has been exactly as Sean describes. Lawyers raise red flags.
>> People ask the question "Where is the line between what is safe to
>> look at and what is not safe to look at." Pretty soon, the answer is
>> "Just don't look." I won't argue about whether that position is
>> legally necessary, or sane, or useful. But, I will observe, it is the
>> position a *LOT* of people take.
> Completely ducking the implicit Holy War, I will say this: Looking at
> GPL'd code doesn't really mean anything *unless* you copy the code or
> you try to patent a process which the code works with. The GPL is not
> an impediment in any other way; Copyright is fuzzy in areas of code
> but it is safe to say that there is more than one way to skin a cat.
> It didn't work very well for SCO, which seems to be the boilerplate of
> this discussion.
right. GPL is about what you can do with the code (copy, modify,
redistribute, etc). you can't really license concepts and methods --- as
SCO has found out. there are certain companies where the legal people
are exhibiting a certain hysteria about the "viral" nature of the GPL
--- and seemingly forgetting that it's not a kind of human
mad-cow-disease that can infect you by just looking at GPL code... i've
had arguments with colleagues about participating in this mailing list:
they babbled something about getting contaminated by looking at publicly
available stuff (luckily our IP lawyer on campus cleared that brain
fudge up).
>
> Seeing how a GPL piece of code works and replicating it on one's own
> is not likely to be a copyright violation, or abuse of the GPL itself.
> The trouble is with demonstrating to LAWYERS and COURTS that you
> didn't steal the code, and really every possible software license has
> the same problem. It isn't about the software license in this regard,
> it *is* about how IP is handled.
it relieves the burden of proof if you can copy the code and use as you
want (which BSD-style license kind of allow).

-- 
dr dirk husemann, pervasive computing, ibm zurich research lab
--- hud at zurich.ibm.com --- +41 44 724 8573 --- SL: dr scofield