meo@stiatl.UUCP (Miles O'Neal) (09/26/89)
To quote from the standard MIT-distributed X11 copyright: ... |Permission to use, copy, modify, and distribute this software and its |documentation for any purpose and without fee is hereby granted, |provided that the above copyright notice appear in all copies and that |both that copyright notice and this permission notice appear in |supporting documentation, and that the names of Digital or MIT not be |used in advertising or publicity pertaining to distribution of the |software witt specific, written prior permission. ... So, technically, does this mean we have to quote this thing when we include code fragments as I did in my posting about XSendEvent()? While I realize that this sort of thing isn't in the spirit of X as I understand the intentions of its authors and the X Consortium (1), in light of the recent spate of territorial claimjumping suits in the software (and specifically the visual interface & related code) world, how does this DIGITAL copyright enter into things? Perhaps to save net.bandwidth from lawsuit.paranoia, we could get a clarification added, along the lines of the book copyrights which say something like, ..."except that brief excerpts may be used as examples or in reviews...". Or am I just being excessively paranoid? I must admit, I do NOT trust most corporate lawyers these days (in terms of being rational). Notes: 1) It's a group named the X Consortium, not a consortium group named X. 8^) -Miles
rws@EXPO.LCS.MIT.EDU (Bob Scheifler) (09/27/89)
So, technically, does this mean we have to quote this thing when we
include code fragments as I did in my posting about XSendEvent()?
No.
"except that brief excerpts may be used as examples or in reviews..."
The hassle value in changing notices makes this unappealing.
Or am I just being excessively paranoid?
I suppose it would have depended on how the previous question got answered. :-)barmar@kulla (Barry Margolin) (09/27/89)
In article <7042@stiatl.UUCP> meo@stiatl.UUCP (Miles O'Neal) writes: >Perhaps to save net.bandwidth from lawsuit.paranoia, we could get >a clarification added, along the lines of the book copyrights which >say something like, ..."except that brief excerpts may be used as >examples or in reviews...". Or am I just being excessively paranoid? I believe that the US copyright laws already specify that brief excerpts may be used for just such purposes, without violating copyrights. They probably don't rigorously define "brief excerpt", though; if it came to court, it would probably be the judge's decision. Another exception is that teachers are permitted to make a small number of copies for educational use. Barry Margolin, Thinking Machines Corp. barmar@think.com {uunet,harvard}!think!barmar