Re^2: The Perl Foundation Wants to Hear From You

IANAL

1. Depends on the license. You should speak with a lawyer if you have any doubts.

2. Copyright is a complex subject. Its quite possible that much of a program is exempted from copyright for various reasons. You should speak with a lawyer if you have any doubts.

3. Depends on the license. You should speak with a lawyer if you have any doubts.

4. You should inform the author that they have not specified a license model and that you would like clarification. You should speak with a lawyer if you have any doubts.

5. You should speak to a lawyer about the first point. The second point i believe is more clear: ST is a technique, so it is quite possible that a given instance of the technique is under a copyright, however its quite clear that the technique itself is not copywritable as techniques just arent copywritable. And the fact that the ST is well documented and in print suggests that it is not patented. But if you have doubts about this you should speak to a lawyer, patent law is not for the weak of heart.

6. If the code is released under the Artistic license you are fairly free to use the code as you choose. You should speak to a lawyer for specific interpretations of your rights.

In short none of this stuff is within the remit of this site or of TPF. If you want a site that does deal with stuff like that wander over to http://groklaw.com. But even there you will find advice that more or less boils down to If in doubt, speak with a lawyer.

---
$world=~s/war/peace/g

Comment on Re^2: The Perl Foundation Wants to Hear From You

Replies are listed 'Best First'.
Re^3: The Perl Foundation Wants to Hear From You by tirwhan (Abbot) on Dec 07, 2005 at 17:20 UTC
You should speak with a lawyer if you have any doubts. Thanks, I know the litany :-). And if I have occasion to need a concrete answer to a question which is really doubtful I will. But the always-correct answer "you should talk to a lawyer" does not help someone who cannot or does not want to talk to a lawyer and just wants to know "Can I take this module and use it at work." or "Can I copy this subroutine into my own program". That's an entry-barrier into using OS software which we can do without. No programmers I know like dealing with legal stuff and if they come up with such a question and don't easily find an answer they may decide to not bother and wander off to use C# instead. I believe that most of these questions can be answered in general with a fair amount of accuracy by a knowledgeable person, and having these answers available would be a good thing. Anyway, I'm happy with chromatics answer, so no need to butt heads over this. Debugging is twice as hard as writing the code in the first place. Therefore, if you write the code as cleverly as possible, you are, by definition, not smart enough to debug it. -- Brian W. Kernighan	[reply]

Replies are listed 'Best First'.

Re^3: The Perl Foundation Wants to Hear From You
by tirwhan (Abbot) on Dec 07, 2005 at 17:20 UTC

You should speak with a lawyer if you have any doubts.

Thanks, I know the litany :-). And if I have occasion to need a concrete answer to a question which is really doubtful I will. But the always-correct answer "you should talk to a lawyer" does not help someone who cannot or does not want to talk to a lawyer and just wants to know "Can I take this module and use it at work." or "Can I copy this subroutine into my own program". That's an entry-barrier into using OS software which we can do without. No programmers I know like dealing with legal stuff and if they come up with such a question and don't easily find an answer they may decide to not bother and wander off to use C# instead. I believe that most of these questions can be answered in general with a fair amount of accuracy by a knowledgeable person, and having these answers available would be a good thing.

Anyway, I'm happy with chromatics answer, so no need to butt heads over this.

Debugging is twice as hard as writing the code in the first place. Therefore, if you write the code as cleverly as possible, you are, by definition, not smart enough to debug it. -- Brian W. Kernighan

[reply]