Re: [gentoo-dev] Last rites: games-rpg/nwn-shadowlordsdreamcatcherdemon

[Kent Fredric]

On Fri, 8 Sep 2017 10:11:51 -0500
R0b0t1 <r030t1@×××××.com> wrote:

> Then I'm quite confused as to why people seem to be extremely attentive to
> copyright infringement (besides an immediate payout). In the US they cite
> the reasoning I gave, from memory.
>
> Maybe that was for trademarks?

This is one of those problems where the nebulous term "IP" has infected
our thinking.

Yes, US is very *copyright* infringement zealous.

But Trademark and Copyright are very different beasts.

Trademarks (read: brands, company names, company symbols, etc)  do
expire much shorter, but that's due to other reasons. Namely, that if
your company ceases to be doing business for 10 years, nobody is harmed
by people using a name of a company that doesn't exist, because
"Trademark protection" is largely a device to prevent competitors
claiming they're you, and to prevent competitors selling products
claiming you made them.

Copyright (read: the right to publish, distribute, and sell) has a much
longer life as the results of that can be inheritable, eg: profits from
sale copyrighted works can go towards the estate of the author of those
works after the death of that author.

There are documented *exceptions* to this, but they don't apply to us
as they apply to public institutions such as archives and libraries.

And there are exceptions in cases of "fair use", which Gentoo does not
fall under.

So, even though it is true that copyright expires, copy right expiry
dates are currently such that most juristictions don't have any
software that could conceivably exist that expires.

If the expiry period is 50 years, and there's no software in
circulation older than 30, its kindof a moot point to argue software
that is less than 10 years old might have expired.

> >> Sir, please see my above comment about building ballistic missiles.
> >> It may be important for the Gentoo Foundation to add a disclaimer
> >> similar to the one I mentioned. I would hate for the Foundation or
> >> any of its administrators or contributors to be found guilty of
> >> aiding and abetting terrorists.
> >
> > Yeah. Stop trolling, please.
> >
>
> I am being completely serious. You can find such a clause in the iTunes
> license.
>
> If it seems ridiculous please reconsider the subject in question.

I'm not sure how enforceable that clause is as a License.

As a Warranty, sure. 

"if you use it for this, don't blame us if bad things happen, we told
you not to"

Also, those are typically things that fall under "National Laws" and it
doesn't really make sense to have to explicitly articulate in a
software license that its intended use is to be done within the scope
of your local governing laws.

You're bound to follow local law regardless of whether you accept or
reject a given license. So, its kinda moot.

If your government goes and uses your software for military
applications despite your license saying "don't", I'm not really sure
you'll have much in the way of recourse.

If it was that simple I'd just start putting license terms that
prohibits people from using software I wrote as part of a state
approved mass surveillance platform....