On 2003-12-17 00:57:43 +0000 Michael Adams <mdadams@ece.uvic.ca> wrote:
Please do not take offense. I am not criticizing the members of this forum.I have received a number of rather unkind e-mail from some members of the open-source community.Please name them.
I am not taking offence, but I do not really see the point of "some people flamed me" in an email. If you wish to reprimand someone, please do so.
I mean, it is better to have something available than nothing. Many people are using JasPer, in spite of its non-ideal license. If I had prevented JasPer from being publically available at all, what would this have really accomplished?
I was referring to it as a negotiating tactic, but maybe it would have increased the demand for a free software implementation. By using a web site to mislead people into believing that JasPer is open-source free software, it could make one heck of a mess to waste the time of free-software developers :-(
For the benefit of debian-legal, I quote what I consider misleading on its web site: "The JasPer Project is an open-source initiative to provide a free software-based reference implementation of the codec specified in the JPEG-2000 Part-1 standard"
I am not a lawyer. So I am not going to pretend to be one. Image Power and the University of British Columbia have lawyers who were consulted during in the license drafting process. I trust that these experienced individuals knew what they were doing.
Fair enough, but I do not know them and cannot understand their actions. As the saying goes, "In God we trust. All others must bring data." They have gone far beyond what many other lawyers have done. Did you retain your own lawyers? Can you ask the lawyers involved why they felt that extra protection is necessary? What parameters did you give these lawyers? Were they aware of your stated aim to release a free software implementation?
-- MJR/slef My Opinion Only and possibly not of any group I know. Please http://remember.to/edit_messages on lists to be sure I read http://mjr.towers.org.uk/ gopher://g.towers.org.uk/ slef@jabber.at Creative copyleft computing services via http://www.ttllp.co.uk/