Mailing List Archive: NCSA LICENCE PROBLEMS

NCSA LICENCE PROBLEMS

Apr 10, 1995, 12:00 PM

Post #1 of 3 (880 views)

> I've taken the step of writing a license.
>
> http://www.hyperreal.com/apache/LICENSE
>
> Please take a look, and make comments if you wish.
> This draft expresses what I think we need. There will
> probably be bits you want removed/changed, but please
> read it only as a first draft, and not necessarily
> as the views of everyone else invloved with Apache.

Seems fine to me. There should also be a copyright (c) and a
pointer to the distribution licence in the header of each of the
src/files. Otherwise we're compounding the licencing errors
we've inherited.

I spoke to Paul Richards (one of our listeners) again over the
weekend - it seems like we're still no better protected legally
for having this licence present. It's still the case that
we *NEED* NCSA to tell us where they stand on the 1.3R licence.

You'll have seen the message I sent to Beth Frank and Carlos Varela
which asked for a little clarification. Well, there's been no
response. Beth, Carlos? Who should we talk to in NCSA to
make some progress on this issue?

> robh

Cheers,
Ay.

Andrew Wilson URL: http://www.cm.cf.ac.uk/User/Andrew.Wilson/
Elsevier Science, Oxford Office: +44 01865 843155 Mobile: +44 0589 616144

Re: NCSA LICENCE PROBLEMS [ In reply to ]

rst at ai

Apr 10, 1995, 8:17 AM

Post #2 of 3 (850 views)

Permalink

Date: Mon, 10 Apr 95 12:00:05 BST
From: Andrew Wilson <andrew@www.elsevier.co.uk>

I spoke to Paul Richards (one of our listeners) again over the
weekend - it seems like we're still no better protected legally
for having this licence present. It's still the case that
we *NEED* NCSA to tell us where they stand on the 1.3R licence.

For the tenth time, it is not. Richards' theory, if I recall it
right, is that NCSA could argue that the legalese in the README file
covers only the README, and that therefore NCSA could try to claim in
court that they hadn't actually intended the terms within it to cover
any of the software which happened to come in the same box. This
argument is crazy on its face for several reasons:

1) The legalese in the README file mentions "code" and "source code",
yet the file itself contains none. Clearly, the language in that
file is intended to apply to the entire distribution, and not just
the 28-line text file it appears in (which is mostly taken up with
the legalese itself!).

2) The dedication to the public domain (that's not a "license", BTW,
at least not in the legal sense), isn't the only thing in that
README file --- the warranty disclaimer is also in that same file
and nowhere else. So, if NCSA wants to claim copyright on the NCSA
1.3 code, they have to open themselves up to lawsuits over bugs.
This is hardly likely to be to the liking of the NCSA lawyers.

3) NCSA and representatives of NCSA have repeatedly *acknowledged*
that the 1.3 code is in the public domain, both in private
statements to us and publically. They're thinking about changing
those terms for subsequent distributions, but they haven't yet, and
indeed their impression is that they can't.

Look, anyone can sue anyone else over anything. But if NCSA is
absolutely desperate to have a lawsuit, they can probably find a
better case than this one anyway; it's so laughable it would probably
get thrown out of even an American court. Please give it a rest...

rst

Re: NCSA LICENCE PROBLEMS [ In reply to ]

andrew at www

Apr 10, 1995, 2:04 PM

Post #3 of 3 (849 views)

Permalink

> Look, anyone can sue anyone else over anything. But if NCSA is
> absolutely desperate to have a lawsuit, they can probably find a
> better case than this one anyway; it's so laughable it would probably
> get thrown out of even an American court. Please give it a rest...

Done.

> rst

Cheers,
Ay.

Andrew Wilson URL: http://www.cm.cf.ac.uk/User/Andrew.Wilson/
Elsevier Science, Oxford Office: +44 01865 843155 Mobile: +44 0589 616144