On 25 Jul, Chirgwin, Richard wrote:
> Robert writes:
>
>>Licences like this are in fact a trap door - once you have gone through
>>them, you are effectively barred from developing open source software
>>through the danger of legal action.
>
> Robert, I'm not an expert reader of licenses - and I suspect other Linkers
> may be curious, so could you explain the danger in greater detail?
You don't have to be an expert in licences really, but also please bear
in mind IANAL! The scenario goes like this...
1) Assume you are an open source developer, happily coding away on one
of more open source projects - such as, say for the case of the
argument, the Linux kernel.
2) Some company decides that it will allow you to look at some of its
proprietary source code (ie code that is NOT licenced under an open
source licence). To look at the code you have to agree to the
licence provisions which forbid you to reuse/distribute etc the code
for any purpose. For the sake of the argument, say the code you look
at is an operating system kernel.
3) Following this look at the proprietary code, you contiunue hacking
away on the Linux kernel. Can you guarantee that you are not using
some technique used in the proprietary code?
The simple answer is that of course you cannot guarantee this - and
that means that any work you do is potentially tainted - with legal
implications that are pretty horrendous. This is particularly so if
you are a company whose business depends on being able to distribute
the software).
-- Robert Hart hartr@redhat.com Red Hat Asia-Pacific, Unit 15, 23 James St, Brisbane, Qld 4006, Australia Tel +61 (0)7 3872 4808 Fax +61 (0)7 3257 4800
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