OpenEuphoria

Re: Protection of our software

• Posted by "Juergen Luethje" <j.lue at gmx.de> Nov 20, 2003
• 767 views

Me wrote:

> Patrick wrote:
>
>> Hear hear...
>>
>> May I use that license in my code?
>
> Yes, of course. You are welcome.
>
> But I got some private mails, containing good suggestions for
> improvement. So maybe tomorrow I'll post an improved version.

Here is my latest version. Many thanks to Louis Puster and Travis Beaty
for their help. But any mistake in the text is made by myself. 

-------------------------------------------------------------------------
License
-------
This program, "mbox100.zip", is copyright 2003 by Juergen Luethje.
All rights are reserved, except that you may copy the software and it's
documentation freely, as long as you are not selling it, and the file
"mbox100.zip" is not modified. This means, among other things, that you
are not allowed to rename the file, or split it into pieces.

Without special written permission from the author, you are not allowed
to distribute the program included in another archive or file.

This software is distributed WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the
implied warranty of MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.
I do not accept responsibility for any effects, adverse or otherwise,
that this code may have on you or your computer. Use it at your own risk.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------

Here are some interesting links concerning this stuff:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_software
http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/categories.html
http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/words-to-avoid.html
http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/gpl.html

(The last paragraph of the license is copied from the GPL.)

>> The only point that I would disagree on though...
>>> Is there an installer, that
>>> only installs the software, if the installation file has the correct
>>> name, and after having checked it's integrity?
>>
>> As a consumer, I download applications all the time.
>> For the developer, it might be important to them that installer file is
>> named w_win98_ver2.38.41.exe, 'cause they have many versions of the same app
>> in their public directory.
>> For me, I have many different applications in my "installers" directory. I
>> wouldn't be able to find this application "Widget" if it had it's current
>> name, so I almost always rename the installer file to something meaningful
>> to ME.
>>
>> Certainly check the integrity, but don't check the name please :o)
>
> I see your point. But how can I then prevent people from distributing
> renamed copies of my software?
> (That guy in Russia was not the first one, who did so!)

Well, I don't want to take a sledgehammer to crack a nut ...

Now for any file that I offer for download, I've added the MD5 checksum
on my website. So anyone can check, whether s/he has got an unaltered
copy of the original file.
Together with a (hopefully) very clear license, that might be sufficient
for now.

Thanks to all who participated in this discussion.

Best regards,
   Juergen

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