| Re: [chrony-dev] Support for another crypto hash? |
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On Tue, 18 Oct 2011, Ed W wrote:
On 18/10/2011 19:28, Bill Unruh wrote:
How about libtomcrypt? Used for dropbear amongst other things. Public
domain so you can repackage it under any licence you feel fit
including GPL
As far as I know, there is no such concept as a "public domain" license.
public domain is a state of being-- eg a statement that copyright has
expired
or that the item was not, for some legal reason, copyrightable. A
declaration
by the author cannot put it into that state. It would be far better if
the license simply said that it granted permission to
copy the the software for any purpose whatsoever and under any
conditions. Or even that the author gives up all rights forever he
might have under copyright law
to this software.
I'm not sure what the argument is here. He basically allows anyone to
use the code in any way they wish.
That is clearly his intent. However, I believe that this is not what he
actually does legally. If I am correct, that public domain is a state, not a
license term, then his declaration that it is in that state is either right or
wrong. It is as if he said "My code is red", which could either be verified or
not or declared irrelevant. He owns the copyright. As such he has to give
permission to others to copy it. His false declaration (false because it is
not in the state of public domain-- it is both clearly a copyrightable work,
and that copyright has not expired) that his code has a
certain property does not accomplish that.
What he needs to do is what your second sentence above comes closer to doing,
stating that anyone can copy it for any purposes, and may make derivative
works of it, and that this right is non-revokable.
I do understand that in certain jurisdictions this may accidently incur
liability for certain mis-uses of the code, however, the code licence
No, that is not what I am arguing.
allows downstream users to re-licence appropriately as they see fit, so
that's just an abstract debate...
No, the code license does NOT say that they may relicense it. If you look at
the LICENSE file in the code, it simply states that the code is in the public
domain. It says nothing about relicensing. In his web page blurb he does
indicate that he believes it means that, but his interpretation of the words
of his own license could be wrong. It is the words that matter in legal
matters, and his false declaration of public domain status is not, I believe,
sufficient.
https://github.com/libtom/libtomcrypt/blob/master/LICENSE
However, I disagree that there is no concept of public domain software.
The author can disclaim their copyright (at least in some
juristictions). See:
There is certainly such a concept. It is just not a license. As that wikipedia
page below states "it is to be placed in the public domain, the author must
explicitly disclaim the copyright and other rights on it in some way."
Ie, the author can certainly give up his rights, but that is what he must do.
It then may become public domain. Just as if I paint my house with red paint,
the statement "my house is red" becomes true, but you cannot make it red
simply by stating "my house is red".
Unfortunately these issues are not academic, since some people a loath to rely
on legally nonsensical statements. Ie, he, or his executors, could come back
and say that he never gave up his rights, and that anyone using the software
now becomes liable to paying for it. Just as a statement "my house is red"
does not prevent me from painting it blue.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_domain_software
http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/categories.html#PublicDomainSoftware
Please don't lets argue this further. Point is that there exists some
slug of code to compute hashes, that you can do with absolutely whatever
you wish.
While it is true that there exists some slug of code, and while it is true
that the author of that code has indicated that he now feels you can do
whatever you want with it, that neither means he cannot change his mind, nor
that the courts could not declare his statement of his intentions null and
void. Now, you can then certainly act on the assumption that evenif it is null
and void, he, or his executors, or whoever he in future assigns his copyrights
to, will not in fact sue you. And I agree that that is probably a good bet. But once you
have imbedded the code inside your own code, it may, or may not, be areal pain
to have to rip it out in that perhaps unlikely future.
It would be far better if he simply stated that he renouces all copyright
rights, and irrevocably licenses anyone to copy it and gives others the rights
to copy it as well.
That certain legal terms accrete connotations does not mean that they have
legal weight. It would probably be hard for him to sue you for using his
software now, but it would probably not be difficulty for him to say that he
has changed his mind and you now either have to remove the code from your
program or start paying him money.
Regards
Ed W
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William G. Unruh | Canadian Institute for| Tel: +1(604)822-3273
Physics&Astronomy | Advanced Research | Fax: +1(604)822-5324
UBC, Vancouver,BC | Program in Cosmology | unruh@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Canada V6T 1Z1 | and Gravity | www.theory.physics.ubc.ca/
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