MOO-cows Mailing List Archive

[Prev][Next][Index][Thread]

Re: anyone ever gotten Xerox to clarify the MOO license



At 05:41 AM 1/09/97 PST, Paolo "Bussola" Marchiori wrote:

>Let's see if I have understood about the copyright.
>1) neither server nor Core are under GPL

True.

>2) server is owned by Xerox and isn't oficially free but anyone can
>   use it as free since Xerox wouldn't care

Partly wrong, partly unclear.  Ownership of the server is held in part by
Xerox, and in part by Stephen White and possibly others who have
contributed code.  General opinion is that Xerox is the only entity that
might consider restricting use by enforcing their co-ownership rights, but
Pavel suggests unofficially that is vanishingly unlikely.  Note that
although the server is "freely available" and therefore you can consider it
free, that can change at any time in the absence of a clear license (and
there ain't one).  Calling it "freely available at this time" is exactly
correct.  Jeeze, I've been reading too many legal texts.  :(

>3) Core is owned by Pavel and is free

Partly wrong and partly unclear.  The LambdaCore is, like the server,
"freely available at this time."   The ownership of the core is either 1.
shared among the many contributors, 2. public domain given that the
contributors knew their work was going to be made freely available (likely)
with an understanding it was to be public domain (possibly). I'm assuming
yduJ's post from 1993 was humor.  :)


 ________________________________________________________________
   Eric Mercer <mercere@netcom.ca>  phone and fax (404) 685-0918
   DU Services, Manager             http://www.du.org/duSvcs
   Diversity University, Inc.       http://www.du.org
 ----------------------------------------------------------------
=  DU is a non-profit company that develops, disseminates, and   =
=  provides training in educational internet tools, emphasizing  =
=  interactive, multiuser, virtual reality worlds for schools.   =
 ----------------------------------------------------------------



Home | Subject Index | Thread Index