> On Wednesday 19 May 2004 00:19, pgsql@mohawksoft.com wrote:
>> > pgsql@mohawksoft.com wrote:
>> >> This makes me worried. That's the way we *used* to do things, but the
>> >> sleazy IP lawyers are looking for anything with which they can create
>> >> the
>> >> impression of impropriety. The open source and free projects are
>> ground
>> >> zero for this crap.
>> >>
>> >> We *really* need to be careful.
>> >
>> > I assumed this tool was GPL and we just needed to avoid the GPL issue.
>>
>> I'm probably just being alarmist, but think about some IP lawyer buying
>> up
>> the entity that owns the GPL code, and suing end user's of PostgreSQL.
>>
>> This is similar to what is happening in Linux land with SCO.
>>
>> The best defense is to say, nope, we didn't copy your stuff, we
>> implemented it ourselves based on the documentation.
>
> by that argument, the license of documentation should matter too.. Isn't
> it?
If the documentation is "proprietary and confidential" then maybe, but if
it is publically available and its purpose is to show you various
techniques, then probably not.
I'm not a lawyer, but I have had to be sensitive to some of these issues.
One of SCO's strategies is to liken source code with music. Arguing that
it is "like ours" so it is derivitive. I'm not sure if that will fly in
court, but it has worked in music suits.
All I'm saying is we should all be mindfull of the various IP law
land-mines currently planted in our industry.