On Sun, 2 Sep 2007, Gregg Reynolds wrote:

quoted text
> Yes.  For the dimwits pontificating on this useless thread who can't
> be bothered to check facts on their own, here's the relevant text
> (http://www.copyright.gov/circs/circ1.html):

And therein lies the problem.  Unless a developer went through a
university program that requires courses in contract and copyright
law or worked in a company whose corporate counsel actively
educated engineers in that law or the developer took the initiative
to learn on his own, he almost certainly doesn't know what he's
talking about.  Dorm room debates and shrill, puerile diatribes
carry no legal weight.  So try a self examination.  Have you been
through at least one of the three sources above and did it stick?
If not, you might want to broaden your education a bit before
ranting away and becoming a poster boy for why geeks *should* be
beaten up on playgrounds.  (One inexpensive source is Nolo Press
and their legal self-help books.)

This will be especially critical for OSS development given the
pool from which developers self-select.  Students who live in
bubbles of unreality where they aren't held to account for their
actions.  Individuals unfamiliar with the language and laws of
the country whose copyright law is in force.  Those with political
agendas who'll eventually damage their own cause with careless
or intentional disregard for the issues.  While "SCO vs Novell" looks
like the last act of the desperate, the surface argument is still
valid.  Someone from the above list is eventually going to do
something particularly stupid and "we're sorry" isn't going to
be accepted as compensation.  The tools for rapidly identifying
theft and misattribution are now available so obscurity isn't
going to save you.  So, gosh, I hope those promises of indem-
nification from companies with a few million in annual revenue
hold up.

Finally, for fun, here's a hypothetical to try out your newly
acquired knowledge.  Hypothesis:  The fundamental function of the
preprocessor (in C, C++, etc.) is to create derived works.  Two
major functions are to attach a work, in whole, to another work
and to replace parts of one work with parts from another.  The
derived work is then further processed and eventually becomes
"the program" which is distributed to customers.  Fact:  A number
of Linux distributions (ref:  RH 7.x) came (and perhaps still do)
with header files with GPL2 licences.  These header files are used
in the compilation of some software which may then be sold to
customers.  Question:  Does the GPL2 attach to any such software
sold to customers?

--
Monty Brandenberg, Software Consultant                             MCB, Inc.
mcbinc@panix.com                                             P.O. Box 426188
mcbinc@pobox.com                                   Cambridge, MA  02142-0021
617.864.6907