[jawsscripts] Re: License and Copyright
- From: Jamal Mazrui <empower@xxxxxxxxx>
- To: jawsscripts@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Thu, 26 Mar 2009 21:33:44 -0500 (EST)
Excellent questions, Donald -- for which I have not found answers easy
to find, somewhat to my surprise and frustration. I can convey the
following points with relative confidence. I invite anyone to correct
any mistaken understandings or clarify the picture further:
* You can establish a presumptive copyright of a work simply by
stating "Copyright <year> by <unambiguous name>" when first bublished.
* It is important that this notice be apparent the first time the work
is made publicly available for distribution.
* Further legal evidence of copyright can be obtained by filing a form
with a U.S. copyright office (not sure of the exact title), but this is
usually not necessary.
* As the copyright owner, you can decide what rights and conditions to
confer to others.
* The GNU General Public License (GPL), promoted at
http://gnu.org
is considered the ultimate expression of "free software," to some,
idealogically so. It requires that any derivative work is also open
source.
* Open source, as generally understood, does not mean that fees cannot
be charged for technical support or other related products or services.
It does mean that the source code is available at no cost or neglible
cost.
* The Lesser General Public License (LGPL) is promoted by the same
organization as a compromise position (not its ideal). It essentially
means that other works can use the code in binary form without releasing
their own source code (e.g., a .jsb file). If they modify the source
code, however, I think they have to release the modified version (I'm
not as clear on this point).
* The BSD license, also called Berkeley license, is less restrictive.
Essentially, a derivative work does not have to release its source code
as long as it acknowledges the source of the original work and does not
use that work in a promotional manner.
* The MIT license (from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology) is
like the BSD license, except that it drops the prohibition against
promotional uses.
* Public domain relaxes all conditions -- the original work may be used
in any manner, including selling it by others for commercial gain.
Hope this helps,
Jamal
On Thu,
26 Mar 2009, Donald Marang wrote:
> Date: Thu, 26 Mar 2009 18:02:47 -0400
> From: Donald Marang <donald.marang@xxxxxxxxx>
> Reply-To: jawsscripts@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
> To: jawsscripts@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
> Subject: [jawsscripts] License and Copyright
>
> Is there any process for licensing your software or applying for a copyright?
> Or are these things simply declared by the owner? I am asking because
> Verizon has shown interest in my scripts for Verizon Call Assistant. I
> intend to distribute them free to the blind community. I would not want
> Verizon or anyone else to "steel" them or profit from them.
> Jamal, what is the first "L" in LGPL stand for? From reading your
> description, I am guessing it stands for Limited.
>
> I am more familiar with the patent process. My Uncle worked for GE Plastics
> all his life and they had a policy of a $1 award for each patent! I know
> Microsoft and the record companies make a huge deal about copyright. Is this
> just declared, like placing a copyright notification at the bottom of a web
> page, or is there a legal registration somewhere?
>
> Don Marang
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