[Glastonbury] My CUPS floweth not ...

[Kelvin McNulty]

Thanks for clarifying this, Ian and Damon.

I have felt bothered by the SCO/IBM dispute about proprietory code being 
included in Linux, and am also becoming aware of Debian's status as what I 
believe is the only genuinely 100 percent royalty free Linux distribution. It 
does seem from your messages that CUPS does not compromise that status, 
whereas something like StarOffice would, I imagine, if it was included as 
part of the distribution. Though OpenOffice.org would not. StarOffice is 
included as part of the SuSE distribution that I currently use, though I 
don't have it installed. So copying the discs and passing them on would 
infringe copyright somewhere...

Best,

Kelvin

On Thursday 11 November 2004 20:45, Ian Dickinson wrote:
> Kelvin McNulty <kelvin24 at gcircle.co.uk> wrote:
> > quite easy to install... and it came up straightaway
> > and said Copyright
> > 1993-2002 Easy Software Products - so is NOT open
> > source... it is, after all,
> > the Common UNIX Printing System...
>
> Open source and copyright are not the same thing.
> Afaik, *all* creative works are automatically
> copyright to the creator - it's a so-called moral
> right that you just have.  Failing to put (c) /author/
> /date/ _doens't_ mean that a work is not copyrighted,
> though it can make it harder to argue if you get into
> a legal dispute, which is why the copyright owner is
> generally encouraged to assert it publicly.
>
> Given that you have the rights to a work, you can
> license it to other people to use.  Some licenses are
> very closed, and require payment etc. Some are
> free-to-use but still closed (hence "free as in free
> beer"). Some are very open - you are given permission
> from the creator to take the work and do stuff with
> it, including modify it, pass it on to others, derive
> works from it, etc, hence "free as in freedom".
>
> Think of it this way: if you were to write a book, *I*
> can't open-source your book and give it away free
> because I don't own the copyright.  But you can if you
> choose.  So having the copyright is not antithetical
> to open source.  It is, in my understanding, a
> pre-requisite.
>
> That's the blue touch paper lit then, ...
>
> Ian
> (nb IANAL)