[computer-go] Licenses are uselless

[David G Doshay]

While I won't dispute some of the previous reasoning on this subject,  
Chrilly's comments below are the closest to the reality of the  
license issue. The main point really is that if you do not have the  
time and money to enforce a license world wide, the specific language  
differences between the various open source licenses is not of any  
practical consequence.

Cheers,
David



On 7, Aug 2006, at 6:20 AM, Chrilly wrote:

> The problem with contracts or licenses of any kind is that it is  
> practically impossible to enforce them especially in a foreign  
> country. The story is different if you are IBM or Microsoft with a  
> big stuff of lawyers. But even the big players usually do not go to  
> court, they just use their patents and rights in playing patent- 
> poker with other competitors.
> E.g. Marty Hirsch, the author of MChess, was cheated by his German  
> distributor. But it is practically impossible to start a long  
> juridical dispute from the States in Germany. And of course also  
> the other way round. I had some conflicts with Ossi Weiner, once  
> the second greatest chess distributor after ChessBase over 130.000  
> DMark (about 100.000 $) for licencse payments. Although its  
> theoretically possible to start a legal case from Austria in  
> Germany, it consumes alll your energy and even if you win, you have  
> invested so much energy that you are at the end out of the market.  
> I aggreed without going to court on a payment of 100.000 DM and  
> changed to ChessBase.
> I had in this case clear cut contracts.
> So I am really asking myself about the importance if any involved  
> licencse policy. If you want to keep your secrets for yourself, do  
> not publish the code. If you want that others are using it, keep it  
> on a place for download. But do not complain that it is used by  
> others for any purpose they like. Once the code is out, there is no  
> real way to protect it.
>
> Chrilly