IBM/SCO/GPL (Was: Re: (L)GPL remarks and FreeGIS licensing)

edA-qa mort-ora-y eda-qa at disemia.com
Thu Aug 28 03:58:25 UTC 2003


Alex Hudson wrote:
> This is guidance issued to museums. And it doesn't support your position
> very well, apart from the fact the language is rather loose.

They seem to consider works of art the same way as software, but I 
digress.  I'm willing to accept that copyright permissions can be 
granted via licenses, despite most of such grants occuring within the 
context of a contract.

My position about the GPL is still reserved, I will evaluate the points 
of it comparing it to the Canadian contract law and the Rome/Berne laws 
and see if it truly qualifies as a license.

> part of a contract: that's not the case; Quebec's civil code doesn't
> require it, although the rest of Canada does. Quebec is influenced by

I understand Quebec's situation, they are always a special case in 
Canada and I generally excluded them.  (Though a Deed in the rest of 
Canada always does not require mutual consideration).

Note, of interest to the SCO thing, this line I got from the Canada 
copyright act:

"(3) For the purposes of this Act, other than in respect of infringement 
of copyright, a work or other subject-matter is not deemed to be 
published or performed in public or communicated to the public by 
telecommunication if that act is done without the consent of the owner 
of the copyright."

Can a company claim that it didn't give itself permission to distribute?


-- 
edA-qa mort-ora-y
Idea Architect
http://disemia.com/




More information about the Discussion mailing list