[svlug] Fedora or Ubuntu for novis

[Alan DuBoff]

On Sun, 21 Sep 2008, Rick Moen wrote:

> Hah, hah, hah.  Nice try, NSA lawyers.  Do you see the problem, Alan?
>
> Line one of the document says "Hey, we don't own this stuff.  In fact,
> nobody does.'
>
> The rest of the document says "Oh, and you get to use this code _only_
> subject to the following conditions...."  Sorry, line one just rendered
> those conditions inherently unenforceable.  You just decline to accept
> those terms, and they have no hold over you -- because NSA cannot
> require them as a condition of exercising rights reserved to them as
> copyright owner, because they are _not_ the copyright owner.

Ok, I see your point on this.

What if the liability limitiations and disclaimer was prefaced 
in the license and the placed as a stipulation for the code to 
be placed in the public domain?

Is it not possible for us to have open and free code in the 
sense that nobody owns it?

> Writing bullshit is a time-honoured specialty of attorneys, and should
> not be disrespected.  If your attorney can get some third party or
> adversary to not assert a right through sheer bluff, your money on
> him/her might be very well spent.

And as I have stated several times, IANAL, but I am just trying 
to figure out if I can have truly open and free code, one 
without patents or copyrights on it. Code that I develop and 
place in the public domain for anyone to use, any way they want.

> _Think_, Alan!   A licence is a grant of permission to use your
> property.

That's why when I read the Creative Commons dedication, it 
seemed to make sense, but again, IANAL!

> NSA's legal staff were thinking that they should acknowledge the
> provisions of 17 U.S.C. 105, and at the same time do everything they can
> discourage liability lawsuits.

The U.S. Government shouldn't be allowed to be deceptive, IMO. 
The U.S. Government should not be treated differently than any 
other citizen of the U.S. I want code to be free everywhere, not 
just in the U.S. Is that not possible?

--

Alan DuBoff - Software Orchestration