[Sussex] RE: Licence question

[Steve Dobson]

Gavin

On Tue, Feb 10, 2004 at 11:22:01PM -0000, Gavin Stevens wrote:
> Thanks for the reminder - I shall do this just as a precaution.
> 
> I've been doing this very thing for years with any music I compose that 
> ventures out into the world. I have a small horde of unopened envelopes 
> with music in them.
> 
> Gavin.
> 
> On Sun, 8 Feb 2004 08:40:30 -0000, Sam (Bilko) <bilko_ec1 at hotmail.com> 
> wrote:
> 
> >Hi Gavin, as you are talking about a spreadsheet it may not be 
> >appropriate but what you can do with software is put it on a disk and 
> >post it to yourself. Leave it sealed when you receive it as it should 
> >have an offical timestamp on it. Then if anyone says "I MADE THIS!" 
> >(loudly) lol, you can say, "no, i made it first" and you can prove it 
> >with the stamped envelope.
> >As I said, I dunno if this would b OK but I thought I'd let you know.
> >Hope it helps,

You might also want to post it to some sort of public archive server.  
I've heard, but never used, the post trick.  However, it might be useful
in this day and age if you can also prove that your "software" is in the
public awareness at a given date, the sealed letter would not show that.

The validity of such servers shouldn't be a problem, esp if the server
is in the US 'cos then you're covered by US Copyright law (I think - but
you may have to register to get that in the US).  There is some little,
wannabe, Unix house that is about to get shot down but the rest of the
Unix (free & non-free) in the near future (2005).

Steve