[Freeciv-Dev] Please don't start the copyright stuff again!!! (was: RE: Re: Why fascism is bad but not communism)

["SamBC" <sambc@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Reply only to legal stuff

> -----Original Message-----
> From: freeciv-dev-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxx
> [mailto:freeciv-dev-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxx]On Behalf Of Reed Meyer
> Sent: 07 August 2000 11:36
> To: rp@xxxxxxxxxx
> Cc: freeciv-dev@xxxxxxxxxxx
> Subject: [Freeciv-Dev] Re: Why fascism is bad but not communism
>
>
>
<SNIP>
>      When I first heard about freeciv from Juan and played it, I assumed
> that a software package that had been in development for that long and had
> been seen by that many people MUST have survived the test, by that point,
> that it was/wasn't an infringement of Hasbro's/Activision's copyright.
> WRONG!!  I recently read the copyright-infringement threads in the
> [Freeciv] mailing list archive for July and quickly came to the conclusion
> that most of the freeciv developers/proponents had absolutely no clue what
> they were talking about.  One of the few people who seemed to understand
> what was going on was Brandon Van Every.
<SNIP MANY DETAILS - we'd heard them before>


If you read the archive closely, you would've read the thorough reasoning
and citations that show clearly that MOST of the things you say are not of
concern (such as rule abstracts, code, UI incl. look and feel, etc).

In fact, the only thing we couldn't find citations & precedents to put us in
the clear over was (one of the things you mention) the Tech Tree. This is
not even now verbatim identical to Civ/II, but does have enough similarities
to be a concern. This is a matter more for the future - the 'freeciv' mode
evolving, which is the default mode (I believe), is growing further and
further from CivII. If it becomes a problem (like a hint of a
cease-and-desist order) then the Civ/II rulesets can be removed and the
(then hopefully very different) Freeciv mode used exclusively.

Oh, and anyone is Europe is safe from any hint of patent infringement anyway
(some convention or other - Munich I think, not sure). And we are not sure
if the tech tree would be a work of authorship (and therefore covered by
copyright) or a process (and therefore covered by patent). I go for process
as we have not verbatim copied a chart/table, but IANAL (definitely IANACL).

But let's please not get back into this debate - I don't think anyone has
anything new to bring to it. I only post this to summarise.


SamBC