Re: [OT] Droit d'auteur vs. free software? (Was: query from Georg Greve of GNU about Debian's opinion of the FDL
> On Mon, Apr 28, 2003 at 12:34:36PM +0200,
> Stephane Bortzmeyer <bortzmeyer@debian.org> wrote
> a message of 30 lines which said:
>
> But it is not a real problem. Under the "droit d'auteur", the author's
> right over *software* is quite limited, (unlike other work, such as
> books). For instance, she cannot object to a change in the software by
> the owner of the "exploitation right". She only keeps the right to be
> identified ("Software written by Sue Foobar") and a limited right to
> distribute her work.
I am not an expert on droit d'auteur, but I see two seemingly
insurmountable problems with it from a free software perspective. If
you are saying that these rights don't apply to software (or that I
misunderstand them), then great:
1) The right of integrity. Quoting your paper: "The right of integrity
broadly protects works from being changed or used in ways that offend
the creators vision of the work." Is this an inalienable right of
an author to prevent certain uses of a piece of software, or to
prevent certain modifications (say, e.g. addition of DRM features)?
If so, then the right of integrity interferes with the desire of free
software authors to divest themselves of legal control over the future
development of a program.
2) Droit repentir, which is not universal in moral rights jurisdictions
but applies at least in France. It is the right of an author to withdraw
the original work from the public. Does this not apply to software? Or
is this merely a "you can use it, but remove my name and email address"
kind of thing?
Greg
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