From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Return-Path: Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org via listexpand id S269696AbTGXSWT (ORCPT ); Thu, 24 Jul 2003 14:22:19 -0400 Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org id S269676AbTGXSWS (ORCPT ); Thu, 24 Jul 2003 14:22:18 -0400 Received: from mail.webmaster.com ([216.152.64.131]:8625 "EHLO shell.webmaster.com") by vger.kernel.org with ESMTP id S269696AbTGXSWI (ORCPT ); Thu, 24 Jul 2003 14:22:08 -0400 From: "David Schwartz" To: "Jesse Pollard" Cc: "Linux Kernel Mailing List" Subject: RE: Promise SATA driver GPL'd Date: Thu, 24 Jul 2003 11:37:13 -0700 Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Priority: 3 (Normal) X-MSMail-Priority: Normal X-Mailer: Microsoft Outlook IMO, Build 9.0.6604 (9.0.2911.0) In-Reply-To: <03072408233000.14335@tabby> X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V6.00.2800.1106 Importance: Normal Sender: linux-kernel-owner@vger.kernel.org X-Mailing-List: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org > On Wednesday 23 July 2003 19:21, David Schwartz wrote: > > No matter how much code I write for which I don't give you > > the source, the > > amount of code for which you do have the source is not reduced. The more > > free code there is, the freer you are. The only thing that > > threatens your > > freedom is if someone makes free code unfree. How do they do that? > By claiming they wrote it first, supplying enough lawyers and > court fees to > put you out of existance. Of course, that is certainly true. Someone can attempt, through the legal process, to stop you from using software you yourself wrote. Although I doubt any company would ever be that evil. ;) That is, by the way, one advantage of taking a printout of your code and mailing it to yourself in a sealed envelope or seeking a registered copyright. It at least provides proof that you had the code on the date you wrote it. There is one other benefit to a registered copyright on software that a lawyer recently mentioned to me. Suppose you're a company and have employees who write software. You really can't be 100% sure that the software they provide to you isn't stolen from someplace (and you sure as heck can't be sure someone can't claim it is). By seeking a registered copyright, you can argue that the registration provides constructive notice to anyone else that you are claiming copyright on that software. This *may* start the 3 year statue of limitations from the date or registration rather than the date they found out you had software they think is theirs. DS