From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 X-Spam-Checker-Version: SpamAssassin 3.4.4 (2020-01-24) on polar.synack.me X-Spam-Level: X-Spam-Status: No, score=-1.9 required=5.0 tests=BAYES_00,FREEMAIL_FROM autolearn=ham autolearn_force=no version=3.4.4 X-Google-Thread: 103376,2b315b117e4c5bae X-Google-Attributes: gid103376,public X-Google-Language: ENGLISH,ASCII-7-bit Path: g2news1.google.com!news3.google.com!news.glorb.com!border1.nntp.dca.giganews.com!nntp.giganews.com!local1.nntp.dca.giganews.com!nntp.comcast.com!news.comcast.com.POSTED!not-for-mail NNTP-Posting-Date: Sat, 26 Feb 2005 15:19:23 -0600 Date: Sat, 26 Feb 2005 16:19:46 -0500 From: Jeff C User-Agent: Mozilla Thunderbird 1.0 (Windows/20041206) X-Accept-Language: en-us, en MIME-Version: 1.0 Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada Subject: Re: Source code of large programs wanted References: <-NidnVy-ZYqBU73fRVn-sg@comcast.com> In-Reply-To: Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Message-ID: <1IGdnWN8FN9Ger3fRVn-uA@comcast.com> NNTP-Posting-Host: 24.147.74.171 X-Trace: sv3-xqK7mS3WcB/QYbCzHI3myoS8yWC2HEyzDIOmRxY9CCqsDyUPFHbY35PCCLhawTdoSKGRwzbeiJmm31Y!EqrGwy0vdZMRogyqsF1rIifwgBuqX/HLJe9lb4khE0P8HH6FY3/zbKJudQd05w== X-Complaints-To: abuse@comcast.net X-DMCA-Complaints-To: dmca@comcast.net X-Abuse-and-DMCA-Info: Please be sure to forward a copy of ALL headers X-Abuse-and-DMCA-Info: Otherwise we will be unable to process your complaint properly X-Postfilter: 1.3.31 Xref: g2news1.google.com comp.lang.ada:8503 Date: 2005-02-26T16:19:46-05:00 List-Id: 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.)