Licensing AGAIN [was: Sharing FontLab Plugin]

[Robert Mann]

Mark, your words reflect 100% my position on that epic subject.

-- It seems to me a good thing to outline again and again, that any ruling
on such a license matter will "set the law" and will most probably override
any subsequent change in the license.

I do have a legal background, and we're all in the same boat : there are
some pieces of law that just apply. And in our field  copyright is the basic
block on which all licensing is built. If some ruling goes against the wish
of LC, we'll just have to do with it. And I do not find particularly healthy
and positive and worth quoting such thought as :
     
" …if that does happen then we will 
     immediately change the license of the community version of 
     LiveCode… "

The issue at stake is the freedom to write/create something with a "tool".
Can the maker of the tool impose some restrictions to the rights of the
writer/creator? How much? how far? how long?

So far the line seem to have been drawn in softwares with the inclusion test
: does the created work include part of another work? "Work" in our context
is something like a "piece of code that does something & and is original".  
And that does not seem to include the language tokens, nor the grammar that
governs its use.

This is directly derived from copyright law applicable to written materiel.
And the position in that field in France where I have been a publisher seems
clear : a word is not a work. A sentence can be in some circumstances, but a
work will have to be something constant and original. That is why the
language in itself will stay unprotected.

Since a script can be written on any code editor and text editor there is
little evidence to me that a script can be regarded as a derivative work, in
itself.

Requiring in the indie license that work published be created/drafted by the
license owner himself,
a) is kind of an evident ethical request. I assume that a vast majority of
indies do share that point (so do I!). And the advantage of relying on a
community here is that any commercial offering to do so will hopefully be
reported by the community and would not be welcomed even if that turned out
to be ruled legal.

b) but, that clearly indicates that LC considered seriously that LC script
could not be a derivative work.

c) and it is in practice just not enforceable proof wise, unless you team
with the NSA guys!!!
 
d) and such a  clause has little chance of surviving over here in France
since it would contradicts the very basic rights built in the copyright law
: a license between the indie and LC cannot restrict the rights of the
initial author to dispose of his intellectual work as he wishes. So far I am
acquainted with our french copyright law, that clause stands a high chance
to be declared just not applicable. Copyright law is a very high level law,
in france we call that "d'ordre public" : any contractual agreement that
goes against it is just read as being void, null. And the right of the
author to dispose of his work as he wishes is gold stone in the copyright
construction, (provided it is not derivated work of course!)

So as Mark points out, the assumption that this license is ok just because
it is in line with LC wishes, maybe a little bold and i'm sure LC can and
will find some elegant solutions as they always have done, coming up with
something new eventually!

hint : when the law does not cover you, there could be other ways. And to
take back the example of some school kids who get together and eventually
get an app to apple store (a kind of kid dream that I would not just kill
like that... hence my stepping in the debate here again!) There could be a
way to organize and actually help these rare cases by organizing a network
of "LC coding uncles and taties" that would help these kids, in good
understanding with LC in order to encourage theses wonderful things and
accompany and monitor theses adventures, rather than firing at them!

• Some of us have acquired an indie license that they might not use much, it
will not hurt the company if some of these guys that are in a good relation
with LC since many years, find a way to help the community like that and
become "LC code uncles or taties".
• Communicating over that would help reach attention of kids and schools,
which is a huge challenge for LC community.
• and comunicating over such successful adventures would even better promote
livecode where it should be promoted most : our kids.
• As I pointed out earlier in another much, much, much, debated thread,
there are also some other negative drawbacks in trying to over reach with
the derivative work claim : it creates a real mess concerning all medias
that can be referenced or included (like text from an author) into a script
file. And that mess, if not cleared out positively, will turn LC of little
use in the education field,  and that is not in the interest of the LC
community.

My 2 cents.

As Mark wrote it down the road what matters now is health of the livecode
ecosystem.
 Let's be creative!



>  I'm not interested in finding GPL loopholes but rather the health of the 
> LiveCode ecosystem and removing FUD from open source licensing in 
> general. My concern around LiveCode over-reaching with their derivative 
> work claims (which are significantly stronger than those made by 
> WordPress and Drupal) is that what constitutes a derivative work under 
> copyright law is not in any way altered by the license applied. So, if 
> the original code in an app written by a community edition user is 
> judged not to be a derivative work, then there is nothing that can be 
> altered in the license to fix that "loophole" in LiveCode's intended 
> licensing scheme. Having the investment of a lifetime license, I'm not 
> keen to see LiveCode basing part of their business model on a very 
> dubious interpretation of copyright law, which also restricts the useful 
> sharing of code between community edition users and commercial license 
> holders. 
> 
> I'd really hope to see a more enlightened policy here. It's much like 
> the question of trying to prevent app piracy. There's no point. The 
> people who would pirate were never going to pay anyway. Give people good 
> reasons to do the right thing and pay, rather than try to scare them 
> into doing so with GPL-related FUD. 





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