[discuss] License Approval Request: Macromedia Open Source License

[Sam Barnett-Cormack]

> From: Tom Harwood [mailto:tharwood at macromedia.com]
> Sent: 21 June 2002 15:21
>
> > (4) require the inclusion of the copyright notice in
> documentation as well as the software,
>
> There is concern the term "documentation" is loose enough to
> cause these license terms to bleed onto works that Macromedia is
> in no way associated with.  Unfortunately, this list's archive
> doesn't seem to be searchable, so I have made up an example:
>
> One of the products Macromedia may open source is BURG (a tool
> that generates compiler back ends).  If an independent party
> created a compiler using this back end, and wrote a book about
> this compiler -- never having modified Macromedia's code in any
> way, having only used it to generate part of this hypothetical
> compiler -- then one might argue that the book must include
> Macromedia's license terms.
>
> Is this a reasonable example?

This allows me to see where you are coming from, and I fully understand your
concerns. I would say wether it is reasonable to expect the book to include
a macromedia copyright notice depends on the exact content of the book.

For example, if the turn the inner working of the BURG into a disected
analysis in english, it is reasonable to expect a notice like "Original BURG
system (c) Macromedia Inc." in there somewhere.

However, if the book is only on the top-level langauge structures thay have
used or created, it would seem to me unreasonable to expect the book to
contain any reference to macromedia, except perhaps as a matter of courtesy
in a foreword, such as "The FooBarBaz compiler is used to compile the
newly-developed FooBarBaz language, a modern variant on FooBar, and uses the
BURG compiler backend generator (  (c) Macromedia Inc. ) to generate the
full compilation". However, as a courtesy such things should not be
demanded. IANAL, and such things might, for all I know, be legally required
anyway. If so, it is wasted space and discourteous to put such terms in a
license.

Just my thoughts as a member of the opensource community.

--
Sam Barnett-Cormack
Software Developer
UK Mirror Service (http://www.mirror.ac.uk/)

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