[License-review] Request for Approval of Universal Permissive License (UPL)

[Lawrence Rosen]

John, my responses are inline. This has become a fun hypothetical for a
Friday afternoon.

/Larry

-----Original Message-----
From: John Cowan [mailto:cowan at mercury.ccil.org] 
Sent: Friday, September 12, 2014 12:34 PM
To: Lawrence Rosen
Cc: 'License submissions for OSI review'
Subject: Re: [License-review] Request for Approval of Universal Permissive
License (UPL)

Lawrence Rosen scripsit:

> And when her system administrator reports her to the FOSS police, or 
> more likely when Ameriprise sues her for some unrelated reason, we'll 
> see and hear about it. What then?

We seem to be on different tracks.  Here's the whole hypo:

1) Bob issues code under a permissive license.

[<LER>] Bless him.

2) Alice takes that code and compiles it into her proprietary software, as
she is well entitled to do, and distributes the binary version to Charlie
and others.

[<LER>] She better include appropriate notices and copies of the license and
source code of Bob's software if Bob's license requires it. Charlie now
knows (or is presumed to know) that he's entitled to Bob's code.

3) Charlie extracts the binary bits corresponding to Bob's source code and
reuses them in *his* proprietary software.  Why he doesn't go straight to
Bob's source, I don't know -- Charlies are odd creatures.
Perhaps he lives on Debian Island, where there is no Internet but CD-ROMs
can be bought and sold via the annual ship.

[<LER>] I don't understand Charlie's motivation either. Perhaps he didn't
realize that Alice has a Help-About that explains exactly where to find all
of Bob's source code without prying into her proprietary stuff. Furthermore,
Charlie's lawyer probably didn't tell him that by doing so he is violating
the DMCA and trade secret laws, and probably is in breach of the proprietary
contract he negotiated with Alice.

4) Alice sues Charlie for infringement of parts of her copyrighted software.

[<LER>] I'm not sure if infringement is the proper cause of action, but she
surely has some reason to complain. Charlie's a jerk!

5) Charlie's defense is that Alice's compiled code is just Bob's source code
in a different medium, and he relies on Bob's license.

[<LER>] Go to hell, Charlie. Go to SourceForge like Alice did and just as
Alice's Help-About said you could.

Best regards,

/Larry