brief legal analysis on PINE
I'm a law student not a lawyer, but here is some amateur analysis on the
pine(TM) issue.
It appears Univ. of Washington (UW) allows redistribution of the source in
tar and gzip format. It allows modification with .diff files for
commercial and non-commercial purposes, so long as the modifier makes the
.diff file available to UW.
The modification of the source with a .diff file would constitute a
'derivative work' under the 1976 Copyright Act. Distribution of
derivative works based upon pine(TM) is restricted due to the software's
use of proprietary libraries.
The license attached below does not indicate the terms of the
restrictions. The license indicates that distribution is 'restricted'
without enumerating the scope of the restrictions. Based on the ambiguity
of the license, I have posted binaries on my web site with the disclaimer
that these files are owned by UW, not endorced by Debian, and meant for
personal (i.e., local use).
Posting the files to my website is not a use, it is a distribution. My
'use' of the pine(TM) binaries consists in its locus on my harddrive and
RAM, and in my manipulation of it with keyboard and screen.
The question remains whether UW will permit this distribution from my
website. For this I wait to hear.
For additional legal documentation on pine(TM), see
http://www.washington.edu/pine/overview/legal.html
NatePuri
Certified Law Student
& Debian GNU/Linux Monk
McGeorge School of Law
publisher@ompages.com
http://ompages.com
Pine and Pico are trademarks of the University of Washington. No
commercial use of these trademarks may be made without prior written
permission of the University of Washington.
Pine and Pico software and its included text are Copyright 1989-1997 by
the University of Washington.
Permission to use, copy, modify, and distribute this software and its
documentation for any purpose and without fee to the University of
Washington is hereby granted, provided that these legal notices appear in
all copies and supporting documentation, that the name "Pine" is retained,
and that the name of the University of Washington is not used in
advertising or publicity pertaining to distribution of the software
without specific, written prior permission. This software is made
available "as is".
Although the above trademark and copyright restrictions do not convey the
right to redistribute derivative works, the University of Washington
encourages unrestricted distribution of patch files which can be applied
to the University of Washington Pine distribution.
If this software is modified for local use, please denote this on all
modified versions of the software by appending the letter "L" to the
current version number and by enumerating the changes in the release notes
and associated documentation.
THE UNIVERSITY OF WASHINGTON DISCLAIMS ALL WARRANTIES, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED,
WITH REGARD TO THIS SOFTWARE, INCLUDING WITHOUT LIMITATION ALL IMPLIED
WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE, AND IN
NO EVENT SHALL THE UNIVERSITY OF WASHINGTON BE LIABLE FOR ANY SPECIAL,
INDIRECT OR CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES OR ANY DAMAGES WHATSOEVER RESULTING FROM
LOSS OF USE, DATA OR PROFITS, WHETHER IN AN ACTION OF CONTRACT, TORT
(INCLUDING NEGLIGENCE) OR STRICT LIABILITY, ARISING OUT OF OR IN
CONNECTION WITH THE USE OR PERFORMANCE OF THIS SOFTWARE.
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