[thelist] [OT] Gift Culture on the Net: A Rant

[Martin]

Dwayne wrote on 19/8/01 5:39 pm

>i think it's important to differentiate the issues:
>
>1) reverse engineering.
>2) intellectual property
>3) copyright. 

All of which are different ways to slice and dice
IP law.

However, before all of these is basic contract law.

If I have something of value which you wish to obtain, one of us will
make an offer about how that thing of value will pass from me to you.
If the other accepts that offer, with any and all conditions attached to
it, a contract is formed, and we are both obliged to follow the offer
conditions.

Offer+Acceptance=Contract. It's the same in almost every
jurisdiction, and is pretty much the central tenet of commercial
law, way before the nicities of IP.

A software license *is* part of an offer. I offer you the right to use 
this
software, subject to the conditions of the license. This is the case
whether it's a Microsoft EULA or the GPL.

If you don't like the license, you are under no obligation to accept the
contract, but then you don't get the software.

Of course, you're perfectly at liberty to propose a different offer,
one in which you *do* get the source code, but I'm under no obligation
to accept it. This latter case is covered by the 'going to the author and
asking permission' scenario...

Cheers
Martin

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