Re: [xdebug-general] Re: Is the xdebug's non-free license necessary?
On Mon, 20 Dec 2004, Michael K. Edwards wrote:
> The trouble, I think, is that "derived product" has a legal meaning
> (in the context of copyright) contrary to your common-sense
> interpretation. Anything other than an exact copy of the source code
> you distribute (or, if you distribute binaries, exact copies of them)
> -- even an unpatched but independently compiled binary -- is a
> "derived product" in this sense.
Which country is this in? I doubt that this works the same way all over
the world. Any links to dutch or even european jurisprudence?
> There's a legal instrument for control over other people's use of a
> name -- it's called a trademark. It is governed by different law and
> the criteria for infringement are different (e. g., "tarnishment" for
> use of your product's name in a way that devalues the trademark, such
> as by using it to refer to a shoddy derived product). For instance,
> Linus Torvalds has registered "Linux" as a trademark precisely to deal
> with this concern. The legal entities behind Apache and PHP have
> probably also registered these trademarks and act as necessary to
> defend them (necessary in order to retain ownership of the trademark
> -- again different from copyright law).
>
> When you impose non-exact naming constraints in your license, I think
> you are implicitly dragging in additional trademark considerations,
> and that complicates the interpretation of the license as free or
> non-free. I don't think anyone is hostile to your intention, but
> there's a history of dispute over the details. And in any case,
> adding that clause doesn't give you any legal recourse that you didn't
> already have under the legal definition of a "confusingly similar"
> trademark. (I think -- IANAL, and I'm going on US/California law.)
There is no trademark for PHP for the simple reason that it is WAY too
expensive to have a worldwide trademark. I can not afford to have a
trademark. Because of that, I will keep my license clause as I do not
want people to make a derivate called "Xdebug+" for example.
Also, I do not care a single bit about whatever law some state in the US
has, it's not of my concern.
regards,
Derick
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