Date: 09 Apr 2002 10:23:24 -0700 From: swear@blarg.net (Gary W. Swearingen) To: Terry Lambert <tlambert2@mindspring.com> Cc: FreeBSD Chat <chat@FreeBSD.ORG> Subject: Re: Abuses of the BSD license? Message-ID: <lor8loyeer.8lo@localhost.localdomain> In-Reply-To: <3CB26D50.7FE4DED4@mindspring.com> References: <200204051922.06556@silver.dt1.binity.net> <3CAE7037.801FB15F@optusnet.com.au> <3CAEA028.186ED53E@optusnet.com.au> <3CAED90B.F4B7905@mindspring.com> <4.3.2.7.2.20020406124622.019bfdc8@threespace.com> <3CAF7FB9.3259C392@mindspring.com> <qmu1qmzwkb.1qm@localhost.localdomain> <3CB1196B.403F465D@mindspring.com> <26g026zq9y.026@localhost.localdomain> <3CB14B08.91041978@mindspring.com> <cubscuywc5.scu@localhost.localdomain> <3CB219DA.1B7DFB06@mindspring.com> <y53cy5zryy.cy5@localhost.localdomain> <3CB26D50.7FE4DED4@mindspring.com>
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Terry Lambert <tlambert2@mindspring.com> writes: > "Gary W. Swearingen" wrote: > > The rights the select group are granted are only exclusive of non- > > members of the group because the proprietor (the owner of the non- > > exclusive rights as in your definition) has excluded non-members; it's > > not because the group members have the right to exclude. They do not > > have the RIGHT to exclude; they have only the DUTY to not reveal per > > their contract with the proprietor. > > No, they only have a contractual obligation, if one was written > into their contract. No "duty". Even the Church of Scintology > lost on that one, with the "babble" Perl script modified to kick > out stuff that sounded like their trade secret texts. I thought you would be able to interprety my short "DUTY" as your long "CONTRACTUAL OBLIGATIONS" which I consider synonomous in this context. (I won't ask you to explain the difference, for obvious reasons. :-) I notice that even though you say "they only have a contractual obligation" here, you later say (below) they have "responsibilities". (I won't ask you to explain the difference, for obvious reasons. :-) > > The members of the group may not > > exclude the proprietor, for example. For another, they may not exclude > > members of a second group the proprietor grants non-exclusive license > > to. To summarize, the members of your group are not proprietors of the > > trade secrets. > > It depends on the contract. In most non-disclosure agreements > guarding trade secret disclosure, you are in fact given the > responsibilities of a proprieter, in exchange for limited rights > and order valuable considerations. Whether or not that statement is true, you are not given (even limited) exclusive rights and so you are not a proprietor (by your definition and mine). Having the responsibilities of a proprietor doesn't make you one when you also have the (exclusive, in this case) rights of one. > > I suppose only courts can say when distribution to a select group > > becomes publishing. It seems clear to me, however; that those source > > files just discussed in a nearby thread, which claimed to be > > unpublished, were, in fact, published, unless some fine print in their > > system licenses have more to say (NDA?) on the matter. > > No, they were unpublished proprietary works. You provided no more evidence for the claim than they did. They made it available to the public. Any member of the public who purchases or logs on to (or even sits down at) one of those computers is going to have access to the works. How is that not publishing? Under what definition of publishing is that source code unpublished? You haven't said that there is any NDA involved, even after I hinted (above) for you to do so. > > > The > > > failure to publish -- or to have the intent to publish -- removes > > > most copyright protection. I agreed too readily with this before. AFAIK, failure to publish or (intend to) removes no copyright protect. But I recall reading a little about unpublished works, so I suppose there are some few differences in some few cases. But for a counter-example, someone's personal letters carry normal copyrights even though the person's will requires them to be burned uncopied and unread. So the distribution (not publication) of trade-secret-containing software under a copyright license and NDA is quite reasonable. To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-chat" in the body of the message
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