Re: [AD] giftware license

[Michal Molhanec <michal@xxxxxxxxxx>]

Elias Pschernig wrote:
> > IMHO no, only parts written before licence change by other people than
> > Shawn.
>
>
> Which may be quite some parts, and hard to identify. What exactly was
> the swapware license?

Allegro is swap-ware. You may use, modify, redistribute, and generally
hack it about in any way you like, but if you do you must send me
something in exchange. This could be a complimentary copy of a game, an
addition or improvement to Allegro, a bug report, some money (this is
particularly encouraged if you use Allegro in a commercial product), or
just a copy of your autoexec.bat if you don't have anything better. If
you redistribute parts of Allegro or make a game using it, it would be
nice if you mentioned me somewhere in the credits, but if you just want
to pinch a few routines that is OK too. I'll trust you not to rip me off.

this is why there is "Older versions" section on Allegro homepage :-)

> About copyright.. I think, maybe what was meant on the OSI list, is
> the copyright by Allegro. I.e. by contributing to Allegro, the
> copyright goes to Allegro. If someone else now uses the code, then 
> the copyright holder (Allegro) is the only one legally able to change
> the license. The same would apply if Allegro takes some code written
> by someone, and just merges it into the lib. This code then stays at
> its original license (even if it allows using the code. if it does not
> - then integrating it would be plainly illegal anyway).
>
> This would also make the other FAQ entry about copyright wrong.. since
> by contributing to Allegro the copyright of the modified parts would
> move to Allegro as well. They'd still have the right to claim they
> wrote it.. but the other copyrigt rights they would give away by
> contributing.

please? Allegro is library it can't hold any rights at all. only human 
beings or some legal entity can hold rights. or have programming 
libraries their senators?

copyright always holds the _author_. he can give you rights to use. 
that's all. library by itself cannot hold any rights because it's 
programming library not legal entity nor human being

--
Regards,
    Michal