On Sat, Jul 19, 2008 at 3:08 AM, Jimmy J. Johnson <
boxer41a@...> wrote:
> Thanks to all for the wealth of information provided. I read many of
> the links provided. Let me see if I got this right. It seems to me
> that the licenses such as efl allows:
>
> 1) anyone to do anything with the code [and programs?] as long as they
> give credit to the author.
> 2) users must include, perpetually, a reference to the license.
> 3) frees the developer for any liability
>
> If I doesn't care who or for what reason my code may be used then is #3
> the reason for some copyright or license?
I should fist say that I'm not a lawyer. :-)
It's important to understand that copyright and license are not the
same thing, Copyright is a legal concept for giving the author of a
work exclusive rights to a piece of work. A license is a document
stating the permission and conditions for using something, which has
been agreed to by the user and the copyright holder.
Actually, there are people who argue that software licenses are
actually unnecessary. The fact that you have the "copyright" means
that you have full control over how your work can by copied and
redistributed - even in the absence of licenses or other statements or
documents. And the copyright law in most countries gives you all the
legal protection you need. I.e. any user of your work has to get the
consent from you, the copyright holder, before they can copy or
redistribute it. And when they ask consent you can of course state the
conditions for them to copy or redistribute your work.
The question of liability has to do with the circumstances under which
the other part got your work. If you explicitly claimed that your code
gives the user of your work certain benefits or positive effects,
there may be an issue of liability. If you don't then I think it's
more a question of how the law is written and applied regarding
liability issues in your country. The US is notorious for very weird
liability cases, so maybe that's the reason that so many software
licenses have those liability disclaimer clauses in capital letters.
So to actually answer your question: #3 is probably the most common
reason for people to add a *license* containing a disclaimer
statement.
Also, #2 is incomplete. It should read " and make sure that copyright
notices are retained unchanged.".
Finally regarding #1, there is no requirement to give credit to the
author. However, since copyright notices must be retained, everyone
can see who the original author is.
> Manu, you said no problem if I state my code is freely usable. If
> there is no notice couldn't anyone just use it freely anyway?
The important thing is whether you want to keep your copyright on the
code or not. If not you should state explicitly somewhere that you are
putting it into the public domain.
Also, be sure you know what you mean by term "free" when discussing
software! I think that the FSF/GNU definition of free software is
extremely good:
http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.html. But not
all people agree with or understand "free software" to mean the same
thing.
In the end, copyright law and licensing issues for software is
complicated matter. Basically because it's a human bureaucrat
invention and the application of laws is a complicated bureaucratic
process. Usually it boils down to the fact that the part with most
power and/or money and/or the best lawyers gets it their way in the
end!
My recommendation to you would be to keep the copyright and use the
Eiffel Forum License. It is simple, easy to understand, OSI approved
and GPL compliant. Remember, since you have the copyright you are free
to change the license, or remove it, whenever you want.
/Paul
"LAWYER, n. One skilled in circumvention of the law." - Ambrose Bierce
in The Devil's Dictionary.
--
Paul Cohen
mobile: +46 730 787 035
e-mail:
paul.cohen@...
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