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On 16 September 2005 04:31, Raphael Melo de Oliveira Bastos Sales wrote: |
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> Hi everyone, |
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> |
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> I work with biotech and for about an 1 year I've been working on a |
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> web interface for genome/proteome data analysis. And I'd like to make |
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> it free software. But I still have doubts about legal problems I might |
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> face and about intellectual property. |
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> Basically, I don't want to restrict people on using and |
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> contributing with source or whatever, but don't want anyone taking |
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> credit for my work or pateting it and sending me a cease-and-desist |
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> letter. |
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> If anyone has any insight, references or links on this subject, |
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> please let me know. |
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|
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1. Step |
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You make sure the stuff is your. So you stamp a copyright message all over it. |
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Basically, you put a copyright notification in each and every file. Now you |
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have made clear it is *your* intellectual property. |
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|
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2. Step |
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You have to put it under an OSS license that suits you best. I guess the two |
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most widely used OSS licenses are the General Public License (GPL) and the |
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BSD license. There are quite some differences between them. In a nutshell: |
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The GPL does not allow to include any of your stuff in a piece of software |
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that is not under the GPL. In other words, Whoever wants to build software |
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based on yours has to make the result OSS under GPL as well. The BSD license |
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basically allows any use of your software as long as the copyright remains |
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unchanged (which prevents anyone from patenting it) and the result credits |
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you. |
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|
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All that said, if someone with a lot of money grabs your stuff an - say - |
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patents it you still have to challenge them in court which can take |
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considerable time and money. The GPL has a slight advantage in this case |
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because the Free Software Foundation (FSF) will help you legally. |
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|
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You should read through the available licenses even if they are a boring |
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read. ;-) |
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|
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Uwe |
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|
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-- |
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95% of all programmers rate themselves among the top 5% of all software |
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developers. - Linus Torvalds |
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|
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http://www.uwix.iway.na (last updated: 20.06.2004) |
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-- |
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