Re: Source code of large programs wanted

[Jeff C <jcreem@yahoo.com>]

tmoran@acm.org wrote:
> ... unless I heard directly from the copyright holder.
> What does "heard directly" mean?  I take it a posting on a web site
> doesn't qualify.  Perhaps a registered letter with notarized signature?
> Or maybe a bank signature guarantee?  If I sent you such a letter, with my
> signature, stating that Visual Studio was now Open Source, would that do
> the trick?  What documentation was accepted for the other programs there?

First, I am not really trying to start (that much) of a flame war here...

If I was making the decision for a large group (A company or really any 
somewhat large organization where it was not just my personal "fortune" 
at stake) I would have different criteria for "heard directly" than if I 
was just trying to decide if I could use it for fun at home.

**** But to directly answer your question..

No, a posting on some !!!third party!!! website that !!!appears!! to be 
some email/usenet posting from someone that !!!appears!! to be the 
copyright holder WOULD NOT be enough to overcome the fact that if I go 
to the copyright holders website 3 years later it still has different 
license terms!

If the link with the updated license terms lived within the 
http://www.rrsoftware.com/ domain then I would have less of a problem 
agreeing that the license terms are acceptable to incorporate the 
product into something like debian. (Even then (if it were up to me) I'd 
be a little squeamish about it since the official distribution of claw 
still VERY clearly has license terms that differ from that post)




Several years have gone by since that initial post and still  (google)
site:www.rrsoftware.com gpl
Your search - site:www.rrsoftware.com gpl - did not match any documents.

site:www.rrsoftware.com gmgpl
Your search - site:www.rrsoftware.com gmgpl - did not match any documents.

Oh...and in case you think maybe rrsoftware just does not care about 
copyright
site:www.rrsoftware.com copyright
returns 37 pages

site:www.rrsoftware.com copyright
returns 7 pages


Of course I am sure I am over reacting..I mean really what are the 
chances that some company with a dwindling market share would attempt to 
use some ancient fuzzy onwership intellectual property to extort money 
from some company in a last ditch attempt to make money for their 
lawyers and give a black eye to open source for their buddies.

http://www.groklaw.net/staticpages/index.php?page=20031016162215566

(Appologies to RR Software.)