Original version of the license: "Lamson is licensed BSD or GPLv3, whichever you want. This basically means you
shitheads who like using software without giving credit can go on being leeches on the world and tell everyone that you're fucking brilliant and invented all the gear running your shitty little company when really you just borrowed shit from real creators like me."
New version of the license: "Neither the name of Zed A. Shaw may be used to endorse or promote products
derived from this software without specific prior written permission."
We could very well call this whole incident "Learn You Have Borderline Personality Disorder The Hard Way, By Being Laughed Out Of Court." BSD, meet BPD.
A software engineer drafting up his own crazy license is on as solid footing as a lawyer drafting up his own crazy email server software.
This is yet another example of engineers' disease. Having experience in a narrow technical domain does not confer you expertise in other domains. Being a mechanical engineer does not make you qualified as an expert on climate science. Being a software engineer does not make you qualified as an expert on contracts.
In your opinion, would it be legal for you to fork Lamson at a version before the revocation clause was put in the license, then distribute the source with that license?
IANAL: My understanding is that even if he were to revoke the license, any copies you already made under it would remain your legal property, as they were made lawfully. It's the right to copy (naturally the author's exclusive right) the license is giving you. Revoking that right prevents you from making future copies, but would have no power to make you destroy the ones you already have.
No it doesn't. 17 USC 117 refers to software that you already have a licence for, and covers exemptions to copyright. ie. you're allowed to make a backup of software, you're allowed to transfer your licence to someone else and you're allowed to run it if you only use it to fix .
> 17 USC 117 refers to software that you already have a licence for
No, it refers to software that you own a copy of. Termination of a copyright license does not terminate your ownership of copies that you already have, if they were made lawfully and distributed to you lawfully.
A good quick and dirty test to see if you need a copyright license in order to legally do something is to ask yourself what the copyright owner would allege in his pleadings if he were to sue you.
Hmm, maybe you're right, but most software licences that I can lay hands on from a quick Google search (other than the GPL) explicitly mention 'use' and termination. For example, the BSD licence:
Redistribution and use in source and binary forms,
with or without modification, are permitted provided
that the following conditions are met:
If what you were saying is true though, it would mean that the BSD licence is essentially unenforceable, since once I have a copy, it can't be taken away.
That's not copyright law. Copyright law governs the right to make copies and distribute copies. Use of a copy you legally acquired can only possibly be restricted by a license agreement; contract law.
Copyright grants 5 exclusive rights to the authors of a work. Two of them are creating copies and distributing copies. Two of the others don't really apply to executing software (public display and performance of audiovisual works), and the last is the creation of derivative works.
What the owners of some copies of code do with them is not something the author gains any control of. That can only be restricted by the license, which as it says, is governed by applicable contract law.
Copyright extends to other rights too, not just copying: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copyright For instance, your link makes no mention of moral rights.
In the case of software licenses such as the GPL, it's a weird amalgalm of the two. The only thing which gives you the right to make a copy of the software and use it is the license. If the license becomes invalid for whatever reason (eg. revoked by Zed) then you have an illegal copy of the software, and are pursued under copyright law, not contract law.
Whether or not it means anything depends upon which judge/jury might be deciding it, but if you forked at that commit and didn't use any of his code post that change you'd have a pretty good case that the modified terms don't apply to you since he publicly 'released' that version under the traditional BSD license (or optionally GPLv3).
Careful, though. If the original license is seen by the court as a bare copyright license, rather than as a contract, then the copyright holder may be able to revoke that license. If that were the case, people with copies distributed before the revocation would no longer be able to make and distribute copies or derivative works.
This is a thorny and confusing area, and we are not going to know for sure until we have a few actual cases litigated.
Except when you commit something that you don't own (such as the company you work for claim ownership), at which point all sorts of legal shenanigans commence.
This is why most large open source projects have a contributor agreement of some sort, which basically says "I own all of the copyright and patents for this thing, and you can have a free irrevocable licence to use it."
That is only the case because you have explicitly transferred those rights to your employer when you first start working for them and sign the paperwork.
Not necessarily - it depends on whether it's work for hire.
The point being that in some cases you may not have authority to grant that part of the license, and having a blanket "All your codes are belong to Zed" is potentially a good way for Zed to get sued.
New version of the license: "Neither the name of Zed A. Shaw may be used to endorse or promote products derived from this software without specific prior written permission."
We could very well call this whole incident "Learn You Have Borderline Personality Disorder The Hard Way, By Being Laughed Out Of Court." BSD, meet BPD.