Qt/Embedded

[David Johnson]

On Friday 17 November 2000 08:02 pm, kmself at ix.netcom.com wrote:

> > I've heard this before, but I've always dismissed it as hearsay. I
> > will have to look up Mai v Peak. The implications of this are
> > mind-boggling! Does Stephen King have rights to my brain because I've
> > read his books and they're now in my memory?
>
> The legal test of copyrightability (what is copyrightable) is "original
> works of authorship, fixed in a tangible medium" [1].  Or at least the
> second part of that.

This seems to be a different issue. Those are good attributes for what can be 
copyrighted. But it doesn't follow that they are necessarily the same 
attributes for what can be regulated by the copyright holder. One specific 
example is a movie. The author can restrict how a movie is shown, even if it 
is displayed fleetingly on a movie screen, failing the "fixed" attribute. 

In any case, restricting the user based on the presence of the software in 
RAM is a bad precedence for Open Source licenses to take. The *use* of the 
software should not be restricted in any way. Regulating it based on 
derivation and distribution is much better.

-- 
David Johnson
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