Re: Re: .Net version of FIT

I'm not a lawyer, and I don't claim to fully understand any of this but I 
thought I'd relay my experiences.

First, I don't doubt your interpretation of the license, but I have heard 
it interpreted other ways. For instance, if you include any piece of the 
software, modified or not you must also apply the same license to your 
software. Nobody wants that. That is what Microsoft means by viral. Again, 
I don't share the oppinion, but I've heard it many times

Second Microsoft is launching a two pronged attack. One is against linux 
and open source in general, the second is against anyone who works for 
microsoft even looking at open source code. Their fear is that you never 
really know where the code came from in a legal sense.  If some guy from 
IBM forgets to read his employment agreement and fixes a bug in FIT on his 
lunch break IBM probably owns that code and the developer did not have a 
right to contribute it. It is IBM's intellectual property. If that code 
later gets included in something else IBM can still lay claim to it. For 
the vast majority of the world this is far fetched, but Microsoft knows 
they are a target and it is more likely (although still not very) for 
them. Again, I'm not saying I agree with this interpretation, but I have 
to admit it doesn't seem impossible.

I'd be happy to be told this is wrong, and I have no qualifications in 
this area so I'm really just repeating what I have been told. One thing I 
do think I know (again, not qualified so just repeating) is that it is all 
moot until the gpl ends up in court at least once. 

ThoughtWorks, where being meta-cognitive is something worth thinking 
about.




Cem Kaner <[email protected]>
Sent by: [email protected]
08/03/2003 09:56 AM
Please respond to FIT Developers

 
        To:     [email protected], FIT Developers <[email protected]>
        cc:     [email protected]
        Subject:        Re: [Fit-dev] Re: .Net version of FIT


If we didn't have "viral" clauses, linux would be gone already. The 
viral clause might be the only thing that saves Linux from the SCO 
assault.

Microsoft coined the term "viral clause" as part of its attack on what 
it sees as a competitive threat -- the free software community. I've 
practiced copyright law (as an attorney) for some time, and don't see 
anything wrong with the clause. The copyright owner lets you use the 
software, distribute the software, and modify the software, all at no 
fee -- but if you modify the software AND distribute the modification, 
you have to publish the modified version under the same license as the 
original. This blocks commercial hijacking of a large group's work by a 
small number of people.

Do you have a specific example or a specific concern with this clause?

-- Cem Kaner

On Thursday, July 17, 2003, at 05:57 AM, [email protected] wrote:

>
> What's your preference for licencing? The current code is GPL. Would 
> we prefer a licence without the viral clauses?
>
> S.
>
> p.s. you might want to set the home page for fit on sourceforge to 
> point to the fit page on c2.
>
>
> On 14 July, 2003, Ward Cunningham wrote:
>> I will make a project for Fit on SourceForge. I will wait until there
>> is some consensus as to the preferred organization of the source tree
>> before uploading the source that I have. Please watch the fit-dev list
>> for discussion on this topic. -- Ward
>>
>> http://lists.freepan.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/fit-dev
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Fit-dev mailing list
> [email protected]
> http://lists.freepan.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/fit-dev
>
>
Cem Kaner, Professor, Department of Computer Sciences,
Florida Institute of Technology, 150 West University Blvd.
Melbourne, FL 32901.
Senior author of
                 Lessons Learned in Software Testing
                 Testing Computer Software, and
                 Bad Software: What to Do When Software Fails.


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