Re: About the license of gserver.rb being "freeware"?

On 1 Apr 2008, at 00:03, Corey Jewett wrote:
>
> On Mar 31, 2008, at 04:53 , XiaoLiang Liu wrote:
>> Can anyone help me on this?
>>
>> I think Ruby development team should have investigated the license =20=

>> issue
>> before release the package.
>>
>> Thanks a lot.
>
> http://www.catb.org/~esr/jargon/html/F/freeware.html
> http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/freeware
>
> The term =93freeware=94 has no clear accepted definition, but it is =20=

> commonly used for packages which permit redistribution but not =20
> modification (and their source code is not available). These =20
> packages are not free software, so please don't use =93freeware=94 to =20=

> refer to free software. -- =
http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/categories.html

Given that this freeware distribution *is* the source code, I don't =20
see that there should be any restriction to it. In fact, more than =20
this, the fact that it was well known to be published as source code =20
by the author, any case law making this software non-public domain =20
would be damaging to the industry.

> IANAL.

No, nor am I.

> Freeware is different from public domain. Releasing something into =20
> the public domain means you abandon your copyright and therefore =20
> your ownership of the work. Freeware is a somewhat arbitrary =20
> license, but it generally implies that the author has given you all =20=

> rights to use something. Modification and redistribution may or may =20=

> not be questionable.

Traditionally (I'm talking back before everyone had typed "http"), =20
freeware was common. =46rom what I remember of the general actions of =20=

people, most freeware apps are considered free to distribute, and free =20=

to use, subject to other restrictions in the license. If there are no =20=

specific additional restrictions, one is effectively granted =20
permission to use the software for whatever one might please. Reverse =20=

engineering of software is rarely regarded as allowable, however, in =20
this case the source code *is* the delivered product.

With regard to intellectual property law, anything which has a =20
copyright on it is well protected in most countries with mature IP =20
law, and as a consequence I cannot see the argument of public domain =20
dropping copyright or ownership. This is just the same as a virus =20
author not being able to release themselves from the law by way of =20
claiming that they only wrote the code, they did not 'release' it. =20
Similarly MIT licenses have been known not to provide protection in =20
these cases, however, as far as I know the license remains sound and =20
case law from such incidents is not used in copyright dispute cases.

> Unfortunately, given that the term freeware is so vague, your best =20
> bet is to either track down the original author. Perhaps you should =20=

> contact matz directly and ask why it was committed since it appears =20=

> he did the original checkin: =
http://svn.ruby-lang.org/cgi-bin/viewvc.cgi/trunk/lib/gserver.rb?revision=3D=
4102&view=3Dmarkup

Finally I would just argue that the GServer implementation is very =20
largely 'standard' for a multi-threaded server design and =20
implementation, as such I doubt that any significant copyright is =20
actually owned here. The code is likely to have been derived from that =20=

which is already in the public domain, and moreover it could be =20
replicated without reference as MIT licensed code in a short time-=20
frame. Given this, anyone with concern about the license should =20
probably just do that.

> Corey
>