Re: [gentoo-dev] mac/xmms-mac licence issue

[Dale <dalek@exceedtech.net>]

Bret Towe wrote:

>On 12/24/05, Carsten Lohrke <carlo@gentoo.org> wrote:
>  
>
>>This isn't politics, but copyright infringement on top of a ridiculous license
>>(when you want to see it as one) we had a short discussion¹ about several
>>months ago.
>>    
>>
>
>im sorry i fail to see how copyright infringement or a ridiculous licence
>matters when commiting a ebuild to portage just pick a licence if thats the
>issue warn the user and leave it at that
>
>  
>
>>Carsten
>>
>>
>>[1] http://tinyurl.com/9oxgc
>>
>>
>>
>>    
>>
>
>  
>
I'm not a dev or anything, not a lawyer either, bit I'll try to explain 
it this way.  You go buy a car at the dealership.  Legal right?  The car 
was stolen and sold to the dealership by the thief.  It doesn't matter 
that the dealership or you didn't know the car was stolen.  The crook is 
guilty of stealing the car, the dealer is guilty of receiving/selling 
stolen mechandise, you are guilty of buying/possesing it.  All this when 
you nor the dealer knew it was stolen to begin with.  It is legally up 
to you to make sure the vehicle is not stolen.  If you don't, you pay 
the price.

So to apply to this situation.  The program, according to the person 
that put it on sourceforge from what I read, knows the license is not 
legal but did it any.  He even pretty much says so.  So now unlike 
above, you know the license is illegal.  Well, the Gentoo people know 
this too.  They don't want to be the dealer above who could at the very 
least end up in court with a lawyer billing them hundreds of dollars a 
hour just to pass on something they know is illegal to begin with.  You 
could be sitting in the next court room defending yourself as well.  
Just like the RIAA, you leave tracks and they know you have it.  You get 
it for possesion like above.

Another way of looking at it is this.  Let's say someone at Gentoo, like 
the people that write portage for example, find their code or program 
being distributed without their permission.  If Gentoo does as you want, 
they couldn't really say much could they?  Since by doing that Gentoo 
would be as bad as the guy that stole their code in portage.  It's sort 
of like stealing something from a thief.  Who is he going to report it 
too?  He stole too.  Of course, I say put them both in jail. 

Write to whoever is in charge of the program and tell them to get the 
license worked out so it is legal.  I'm sure then the Gentoo people will 
jump on board and put it in portage for you.

Basically, what you are asking them to do is wrong.  I'm not speaking 
for them but don't hold your breath hoping they will help you break the 
law OK.

My $.02 worth which is not legal advise either by the way.

Dale
:-)

Sticks foot in mouth so I will shut up.  LOL

-- 
To err is human, I'm most certainly human.

I have four rigs:

1:  Home built; Abit NF7 ver 2.0 w/ AMD 2500+ CPU, 1GB of ram and right now two 80GB hard drives.
2:  Home built; Iwill KK266-R w/ AMD 1GHz CPU, 256MBs of ram and a 4GB drive.
3:  Home built; Gigabyte GA-71XE4 w/ 800MHz CPU, 128MBs of ram and a 2.5GB drive.
4:  Compaq Proliant 6000 Server w/ Quad 200MHz CPUs, 128MBs of ram and a 4.3GB SCSI drive.

All run Gentoo Linux, all run folding. #1 is my desktop, 2, 3, and 4 are set up as servers.  

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