On Mon, Apr 09, 2007 at 06:25:17PM -0700, ChronosWS wrote:
> I was unclear when I made my statement.  By 'clean' I meant the code was
> being rewritten from scratch.  I am using the Netrek XP 2006 v1.2 codebase
> as a reference for the protocol and behaviors, but not using the code.  The
> new code will be released under BSD with proper attribution.  Sorry for the
> confusion.  Appropriate files will be checked into source control shortly.

If you want true clean-room with legal right to set the license, you
should use a middle man.

One person to document the protocol, and a second person to implement
based *only* upon the documentation.

Otherwise, failure to provide attribution and respect the original
license is either rude or not legal.

At the company I work, they've chosen to specifically segregate the
employees who work on the Linux kernel, from the people who work on
proprietary drivers or software. This sort of arm's length requirement
is precisely to ensure legality of the situation.

You can't promise anybody that having looked at a specific section of
code, you will write completely unique code. And why should you have to?
Some software patterns *do* apply to certain problem domains. But the
only way you can show this to be a coincidence, is with a visible
distance between the original code and the replacement code. Otherwise,
it is a derivative. Derived works cannot change the license of the code
that was used or changed from the original.

It may seem pedantic to you - but these silly little rules are the only
thing that makes licenses or copyrights valuable in the first place.

No offense intended, and I don't like restrictive licensing. I do, however,
believe that they are important to uphold.

Cheers,
mark

-- 
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