Re: re: ImageMagick vs. GraphicsMagick

On Fri, 26 Dec 2003 [email protected] wrote:

> Regarding the new ImageMagick license-- The ImageMagick license was
> designed to give maximum freedom to people that want to use ImageMagick
> for their own purpose without claiming they wrote it.  Seems reasonable
> considering the amount of effort we've put into developing ImageMagick.
> With the old license it never occurred to me that someone would take the
> entire source base and strip out all the copyrights and replace them with
> their own.  The new license makes sure this does not happen in the future.

Yes, indeed, it would be unpleasant (and likely illegal) if someone
were to pretend that someone else's work was their own.  For
GraphicsMagick we are doing our best to recognize all copyright
holders. The GraphicsMagick Windows install package now recognizes 21
applicable licenses (and even more copyrights)!

> Glenn suggested the following revision to make it clear no rights have
> been taken away other than preventing folks from stripping the ImageMagick
> copyright from the source modules:
>
>   Permission is hereby granted to use, copy, modify, merge, publish,
>   distribute, sublicense, and/or sell copies of the ImageMagick source
>   code or portions hereof, documentation and executables, for any
>   purpose, without payment of any fee, subject to the following
>   restrictions:

Sounds good.

The only thing I see missing in the new license is a provision for the
case where only a few functions are copied into another package rather
than an entire source module.  Let's say 35 lines of code are copied
into a 1000 line module.  Should the ImageMagick file header then
replace (or displace) the existing file header on that 1000 line
module?  It seems to me that in cases like this, it is good for the
license to make the provision that the usage license be given similar
priority to the package's own usage license.  Also, it is clear that
ImageMagick code couldn't be copied into a GPL or LGPLed source module
since these don't allow additional usage restrictions.

There are two parts to what has been called a "copyright statement".
The most important part is the copyright notice

  Copyright (C) 2003 Foo Bar

According to international law, the copyright holder reserves all
rights to a work ("All rights reserved") unless otherwise granted.
That means this simple line is quite powerful.  It is legally
necessary to preserve it on all source files or in derived works.

The license may allow the recipient to use the work according to
certain terms.  While this license is clearly important (since it
allows usage) it is not necessary for copyright purposes.  That is one
reason why the FSF recommends that the usage license be placed in a
separate file and referred to by the source file.

Bob
======================================
Bob Friesenhahn
[email protected]
http://www.simplesystems.org/users/bfriesen



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