[antlr-interest] The matter of licensing...

[Chris Poirier]

Hi Serge,

> Can you contribute code and break this statement , is that so easy to break
> a claim , what did your lawyer(s) argue ?

One cannot assign or reliquish the rights of others.  If someone
(anyone) contributed code to ANTLR and did not intend for it to be
placed in the public domain, then it wasn't, regardless of what the core
development team intended.

Addi's lawyer has a reasonable concern, and what we need is a
clarification from those "in the know" about what steps were taken to
ensure that all contributions were also placed in the public domain by
their respective authors.


> If not , we have better to do than discussing about software rights , even
> if the investment returns is delayed .

Unfortunately, it's not that simple.  I'll be using ANTLR primarily for
open-source projects.  But I can't offer a license on code I do not own
or for which I do not hold the legal right to do so.  Which means I
lose the protection of that license (ie. that I cannot be sued for
damages) when I offer the code for use.

As an example, if a company using my open-source, ANTLR-based software
is sued by such a contributor (one who contributed to ANTLR without
placing the code in the public domain or by providing some other
sufficiently open-source license), that company can turn around and sue
me for those damages.

Maybe you feel differently, but for me, it's well worth my time to
verify this stuff now.  And if I can't get those assurances, then I'll
probably be following Addi's company's lead in not using ANTLR.  And I
doubt I'll be the only open-source developer to do so.  And that would
be a real shame.

Later,
   Chris.



 
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