Re: List manager's statement time

Jay Maynard wrote:

> While I don't want to commit further equine sadonecrobestiality, I do want
> to comment on this:
>
> On Mon, May 26, 2003 at 05:48:43PM -0400, Bill Turner, WB4ALM wrote:
> > I think he was trying to advise "others" that they needed to be more
> > careful with what they are doing, and to honor the Licensing and
> > Intellectual Property rights of others. I, for one, would hate to see
> > hercules disappear, just because it appeared that it was being used to
> > circumvent licensing issues.
>
> FWIW, I do not believe IBM *could* make Hercules go away, even if they
> wanted to. The QPL, like other Open Source licenses, is irrevocable, and
> gives people the right to redistribute copies they have in perpetuity.
>
> I also believe that, fundamentally, IBM understands that squashing Hercules
> would be a Very Bad Idea. They're getting a lot of mileage these days out of
> being friendly to open source software, and the furor that would arise after
> such an attempt would hurt them badly. (I can guarantee there would be a
> furor. I've spoken to Eric Raymond about the possibility, and I believe that
> I can generate enough negative publicity to knock IBM in the head.)
>
> Finally, I think they understand that Hercules is not responsible for the
> actions of its users. I, and other members of the development team, have
> done about all we can to emphasize that Hercules is not intended as a tool
> to pirate IBM's licensed software, and even those within IBM that have
> argued such in the past agree that we've done about all we can do short of
> stripping out code from the system - which would have no practical effect,
> as the previous version can simply continue to be distributed.
>
> Genies hate to be stuffed back into bottles. This would be such a case, and
> I believe IBM understands that.

I believe IBM and SCO are fighting about "irrevocability" just now ....

In the case of open source, someone's ability to affect its distribution after
the fact might depend on their property interest in the thing being
distributed.   Situation one, if they freely contributed their property to the
mix, then I would agree with your statement.  Situation two, if they had no
property contributed at all, then I would agree with your statement.    I'm not
sure which of those two you are asserting in this case.

 If its not either of these situations,  rather its for example some unauthorized
"contribution" of someone else's property, then I assume you will agree the
open-source-ness of the effort is irrelevant to the question of the property
holder's rights in the matter.

PDW




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