Re: DDP images support in KXStudio?
Posted: Tue Feb 12, 2013 11:36 am
I'm a native english speaker and I took a look at the DDP license. Lawspeak is always difficult to comprehend, even for natives, and tends to be an arguing point in a many a trial I have minimal experience with law jargon, but from what I gather, I'm not positive that falk may be able to legally distribute it (immediately at least). The license states you are given a "limited, non-exclusive license to make use of the Licensed Material" so let's see what these two terms mean:anrug wrote:The phrase to create products in the proper format for further processing almost sounds like they were not referring to software as a product but a DDP image itself, which wouldn't make too much sense to me. Anyway, let me know what you think.Upon the terms and conditions set forth herein, DCA hereby grants to
the Licensee a limited, non-exclusive License to make use of the Licensed Material in order to create
products in the proper format for further processing (“Licensee Products”). The license does not grant
any rights to the Licensee to transfer or further distribute the Licensed Specification in any way
other than in the creation of Licensee Products.
In this case I think it means there's a limit on what the company gave you (Licensed Material), not necessarily on what you yourself develop from that (Licensee Products). So that should be ok.http://www-rohan.sdsu.edu/~mwssls/softwarelicense.html wrote:Limited License (LL)
An agreement whereby software is purchased with limits and/or restrictions on the number of copies available for installation or use. LL's are sometimes limited to a designated number of computers (up to the number of Group Copies purchased) or as many users operating a Program at any given time as the number of Concurrent Copies purchased. Some LL's for educational instituions are restricted to use in connection with on-campus computing facilities that are used solely in support of classroom instruction and research activities of students, teaching faculty and staff, and research staff.
This means that they can give a DDP license to someone else too. Not a problem.http://wiki.answers.com/Q/What_is_a_non_exclusive_license wrote:A non-exclusive license is the right to use something (could be a song or a short story or even a patented invention) on a non-exclusive basis (meaning that the owner of the property can also grant a license to someone else to use the property.) So, in summary, you get to use the thing but the owner can let someone else use the thing too. A non-exclusive license in websites, such as YouTube, allows the uploader to set their own license over copyright - whether it be all rights reserved, or Creative Commons Attribution. YouTube doesn't get the exclusive rights reserved to them over the work.
Moving onto the terms of the license:
The license lets you make "Licensee Products" based off the license, and you can publish/distribute your products or tell people about it ("communicated world-wide")the Licensee, by making use of the Licensed Specification,
can create products in the proper format for further processing (such products being herein referred to as
“Licensee Products”), such Licensee Products to be published, distributed, and communicated world-wide
by Licensee;
Here's where I'm concerned though:
andThe license does not grant any rights to the Licensee to transfer or further distribute the Licensed Specification in any way other than in the creation of Licensee Products.
I interpret this as "you can make your product and sell it, but you can't give others the ability to use the license without our approval". So even though you are allowed to publish it because you're the licensee, I don't know if letting falk publish it can still be considered "you" publishing it. It seems to me like DCA has to approve of you "transferring the agreement" to falk/KXStudio before he is legally allowed to publish. Probably the safest thing you can do is ask DCA directly, or you could also consult a lawyer or something. Of course (well you might not know but ) I'm no lawyer and this stuff almost always tends to be pretty vaguely-worded, so I could be completely wrong, but I would still suggest to contact DCA.Except as otherwise provided within this Agreement, the Licensee may not
transfer or assign this Agreement, the subject matter of this agreement or any of the rights hereunder,
without the prior written consent of DCA.
I don't know much about this format in particular, and I tend to agree with "open-source software based on open standards", but because DDP seems like a "messenger" format (which is relatively harmless in my opinion, unlike something like mp3 which requires encoders, decoders and pulls in licensing issues from every single application that uses it), and because I don't think DDP sees much use outside this particular, relatively-niche use case, I think including the software (provided it legally can be included) is relatively inconsequential, maybe even positive if it attracts some users to Linux/KXStudio Plus it'd go in the nonfree repository, if you're against nonfree stuff you don't even need to look at it.ToddMWorth wrote: My 2c (and I say this with full awareness and respect that this is falk's baby, and what he says, goes!) is that I'm anti the inclusion of the software. I think that using it is supporting proprietary lock-in, and has no benefit other than to prolong the life of the format. Honestly, the whole thing seems contrary to all of the reasons I like to use open source software based on open standards.
I could be wrong... but I'm yet to hear anything to suggest that I am. I'm open minded to an education, if there's anything new to add?