Re: Where is the qmail Licence?

Frank Louwers <[email protected]> wrote:
> > > 
> > > Yes, well. I've had my lawyer take at look at djb's sites a while ago.
> > > My lawyer said the are completely unclear, non-enforcable under Belgian
> > > law, and advised me not to do anything with this software :) I ignored
> > > his advise ...
> > 
> > Hmmm.  If you don't trust the advice of your lawyer, perhaps you should
> > get a different lawyer.
> 
> Except for the "dist.html" file, every document relates to examples, laws,
> reports, ... under US law. Contrary to what quite some .us people think, US
> law != international law != BE law. 

I'm not in the US, and I wasn't referring to US law.  Most nations adhere to
the Berne convention or stricter standards, I believe, and therefore the same
restrictions on copyright djb's software apply in my country and yours, I
would assume.

> > If the client has a legal copy of qmail already (i.e. downloaded it, or you
> > provided an unmodified tarball), and all you do is modify his copy for him,
> > that would appear to be the client paying you to modify his copy, which is a
> > right your client has according to djb.
> 
> what if I provide client with:
> - unmodified tarball
> - full source of patches
> - Makefile to turn the unmodified tarball + the source of the patches
>   into a binary package
> - modified binary package
> 
> but I install the modified bin package directly?

Again, ask your lawyer.  My opinion matches Russell's:  the client has various
rights if he obtains the software legally, whether he obtains it from you or
directly from djb.

> What if the client doesn't own the server? What if I sell the server +
> setup to the client? What if I sell the server + the setup on 2 separate
> invoices?

Ask your lawyer.  If the lawyer says no, don't do it.

Charles
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Charles Cazabon                        <[email protected]>
GPL'ed software available at:     http://www.qcc.ca/~charlesc/software/
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