Compulsory checkin clauses.

[Ross N. Williams]

At 6:41 PM -0700 5/8/2000, David Johnson wrote:
>On Sat, 05 Aug 2000, Ross N. Williams wrote:
> > The GPL makes people altruistic by forcing them to share their
> > modifications *if they publish them*. And it works!
>
>Yes, if they publish them. Authors have the right to control the
>publication of their work or its derivative. But they don't normally
>have the right to compell that publication.

Yes, but remember, we're talking about modifications to a work, not
a new work.


> > >But regardless of your philosophy or mine, is a software license the
> > >appropriate vehicle for promoting them?
> > 
> > Hell yeah! Rock 'N Roll!
> > 
> > (Geez, haven't you read the GPL preamble! :-) :-)
>
>Yes, I have read it :-) :-) :-)
>
>It's obvious that Mr. Stallman and I disagree

You must REALLY disagree if you're calling him "Mr. Stallman". :-)


>on the appropriateness of
>legal licenses as a forum for promulgating philosophy. It's sort of his
>version of a charity kitchen. You want the free meal but you have to
>listen to the sermon before you get it.

:-)


>But the preamble is not the legal license! The FSF may very well
>desire that everyone release their original works as Free Software, but
>they aren't using their licenses to make anyone do it.

That's only because they haven't got the legal power to do so! :-)
(new original works I mean).


>But to be constructive for a change, I have a possible solution for
>you. How about defining distribution as what happens between two
>individual human beings? If coworker A gives a copy of the modification
>to coworker B, then the modification has been distributed. This may not
>be legally sound, as corporations are considered legal persons, but it
>would be an elegant solution if you can still tolerate individuals
>creating private modifications.

Thanks for the positive idea, but I'm into legal rigor, so I don't
want to attempt this. I've written the Free World Licence so it can
be used by other people (and in particular uptight other companies),
so I've engineered for minimum legal risk.

I'm still confused about whether I should put in checkin, but
you've made me feel less insecure about feeling confused, so
that's a help.


Ross.

Dr Ross N. Williams (ross at rocksoft.com), +61 8 8232-6262 (fax-6264).
Director, Rocksoft Pty Ltd, Adelaide, Australia: http://www.rocksoft.com/ 
Protect your files with Veracity data integrity: http://www.veracity.com/