Licensing AGAIN [was: Sharing FontLab Plugin]

[Robert Mann]

> But now we have no choice but to ask these would be collaborators on front
> end stack development to use other tools.   Exactly the opposite to
> contributing to the "health of the livecode ecosystem."  

@ Brahmanathaswami

i've always felt concerned that GPL should NOT extend to media content in a
stack and i'll make a demo stack in few days to make the point and give
precise examples and explain how holding to a strict interpretation can be
detrimental to the spread of livecode in the education domain.

Your case-use about  interface designing falls right in that pond :
• In EU the notion of interface is very seperated from the code of a piece
of software. A graphic interface is protectable as a work of art under
copyright (if original etc..) So it falls under the same set of rules than
pictures, text.
•Your design will incorporate and use UI elements that have been designed by
livecode. But in the world of graphics the notion of derivative work is much
more restricted than that. MOna-lisa with a big smile has been questionned,
but an original interface with UI elements will have enough original
creativity. Not even taking into account that the essence of UI elements is
to be used!
• There is also a clear distinction between DATA and PROGRAM in the EU (and
livecode so far still is in the EU), a drawing, some text & data are not a
program.

In short, a Community edition stack file with only UI elements and no line
of code, has little chance to be regarded as a computer program and should
not be regarded as bearing GPL restrictions.

In practice : we should be able to share publicly purely graphical stacks,
or stacks containing only text "edited" with the community edition. And I
call for Kevin & the team to clarify precisely that question.

In practice, I cannot see how that could be detrimental to livecode business
as nobody would ever get a commercial license just to fiddle around and
design mockups. Same applies for a teacher to draft a memo card stack  using
livecode.

On the other hand it would make it easier for a lot of practical uses as
this case shows, getting closer to the original hypercard spirit : a little
tool with which  you can actually do usefuls things with.
And I hope that the community version has been made in that spirit : empower
people to make little practical things that are useful. And with the
commercial version for "true" programming of "real" apps.

Kevin in his answer to Mark Wilcox questionned the references to US case
law, I guess Google versus Oracle. On the issues of claryfiying the status
of the stackFile and its content, we are faced with the same problem : how
does the US GPL legal stuff apply in EU within EU copyright tradition and
regulations?

When copyright was case law construction, the relationship between license
contract and law was not so clear. But UE copyritgh and licensing stuff has
been implemented in UK in various laws, between I recall 1994 and 2009? so
that in that respect, UK is now fully "harmonized" with continental law.

One thing is clear in continental copyright matters : UE regulations
implemented in national law, apply first, because in UE copyright related
stuff replaces and voids any non compliant license contract.

A french guy point of view from the euro continent!









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