Re: RES: What makes software copyrightable anyway?
On 5/19/05, Adam McKenna <adam@flounder.net> wrote:
> According to you. If, for the sake of argument, we assume that such
> binaries are undistributable, Debian is still not affected, since we
> aren't contributing to their distribution, only their creation.
That line of argument has its limits, as indeed the Napster saga
shows; but (assuming that same counterfactual) I think (IANAL) that
Debian's conduct is quite safe. We don't enable it in our binary
builds; we attach a disclaimer to the notice of how to enable it
(including a warning that the result may not be OK to redistribute);
it's by no means the principal use of what we distribute; we don't
have reason to believe it to be either genuinely infringing or
something our users routinely do; and we aren't under legal notice
from the Quagga copyright holders that they disapprove of our
packaging. Judging only from Napster, that's a pretty good defense.
Cheers,
- Michael
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