[Freeciv] Re: software license violation

["SamBC" <sambc@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

gets better and better...

> -----Original Message-----
> From: freeciv-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:freeciv-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxx]On
> Behalf Of Brandon Van Every
> Sent: 20 July 2000 12:22
> To: freeciv
> Subject: [Freeciv] software license violation
>
>
> Aha.  You guys are screwed on a legal account completely different from
> copyright law.  It says very clearly in the Civ II: TOT license
> agreement at the back of the game manual (and I'm going to assume that
> it's fundamentally similiar, and in any event applicable, to all the
> other Civ games):

I should like to point out this is the usual shrink-wrap license which has
always been of dubious legality. However, even assuming applicability in a
general legal sense, there are point of non-applicability...

>
> "OTHER RESTRICTIONS: You may not cause or permit the disclosure,
> copying, renting, licensing, sublicensing, leasing, disseminating or
> otherwise distributing of the CD-ROM or the Documentation by any means
> or in any form, without the prior written consent of Hasbro Interactive.
> You may not modify, enhance, supplement, create derivative work from,
> adapt, translate, reverse engineer, decompile, disassemble or otherwise
> reduce the CD-ROM to human readable form."
>

What 'we' (I hesitate to use the term due to my lack of tangible
contribution to code) have done is not to reduce the CD-ROM to human
readable form. What we have produced is in no way a reduction of the content
of the CD-ROM. We just, to use the phrase I remember vividly from school,
"re-wrote it in our own words". And that, as the quote from copyright law
recently pointed out, is perfectly legal in any situation and may not be
protected. We do not produce a human-readable form of CivII, we produce a
human readable form of Freeciv - different, I think we all (apart from
Brandon, perhaps) agree.

> So, to the extent that these clauses are enforceable in the country of
> your choice, you guys are crooks.  I think all you Free Software pundits
> know how to read a GNU General Public License, so this kind of language
> should be pretty clear and unambigous as to the rights Hasbro
> Interactive intended to bestow upon you.  Clearly, Freeciv is a
> derivative work.  You verbatim cloned the gameplay and the tech trees,
> that's your sin.  Your website makes it pretty darn clear that you're a
> derivative work, that's why you should change the name of the game and
> take a swizzle stick to your Civ compatible rules.  If the tables were
> turned and you were talking about someone abusing one of your Free
> Software products for profit, your understanding and response on the
> matter would be unambiguous.
>

If you read the final clause of your quote holistically (which you seem to
have failed to do), the user is only forbidden from making derivative works
such as those works aspire to "reduce the CD-ROM to human readable form."

Our work is separate to the contents of any Civ/II/TOT/CTP/SMAC CD-ROM,
although based upon it. Derivative works are only forbidden in this license
such as they reduce to human readable form.

Excuse the repetition, but on the basis of your failure to comprehend
several of my previous posts, I thought it might assist understanding.

> There's also a lot of stuff about what courts these matters are to be
> bound by, and how it shall all go to Arbitration in Boston,
> Massachusetts.  Maybe your local gov't. laws apply but not if they are
> in accord with various U.N. Conventions eneumerated in the license.
> Basically, I think these guys are way ahead of you as far as what you
> can and can't do with their software license.
>
Ay, and we have and haven't done exactly as stated. Anyone see a
human-readable form of the Civ/II/TOT/etc CD-ROMs?


SamBC
The Movement for simpleLinux    http://sourceforge.net/projects/simpleLinux/
          site soon to be at    http://simplelinux.sourceforge.net