For the first time in its 7 years of existence, some decent statement has been released concering the legality of Zeta. Access, the current owner of Be, Inc.'s IP, states: "We have sent 'cease and desist' letters to YellowTab on a number of occasions, which have been uniformly ignored. If Herr Korz feels that he holds a legitimate license to the BeOS code he's been using, we're completely unaware of it, and I'd be fascinated to see him produce any substantiation for that claim." Update: Bernd Korz has replied on his blog.
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Member since:2005-08-18
"In such strong wording, as you use, we should at least send letters of "cease and desist" to ALL THAT PEOPLE who distribute (e.g. via BeBits or BeShare) even unmodified BeOS PE version."
*We* should do no such thing, it's up to ACCESS. I doubt they bother though.
"Not to say about other PE-based distribution with "added values" here and there."
Abandonware does not exist in the eyes of the law. If you distribute PE you ARE violating copyright law. I'm not saying anyone should be tried in court or shut down, simply stating the fact that it is a violation.
It's naive to pretend it's not.
Member since:2006-02-19
That may be "true", but i have to mention that:
legal issues are very tricky and complicated, especially in IP field and especially in international context. That's why those non-ending battles happen and why army of lawyers had its "bread and butter".
For example, IP license in form of EULA may have no real power in some countries. I'm recalling that case for Finland.
And also "internation law" is actually non-existing thing - this is enforcable only by accepting by state as subject agreements, differently from national law which is enforceable by default.
That means than nor soulblender neither fyysik can decide, what is legal where and at which case, and what isn't - this is actually matter of two-side negotiations, one of those is subject claiming to be IP owner...and you see, if you have eyes, that representative of IP owner figures that fact very well, why he was so modest in his words about case in discussion.
Edited 2007-04-04 13:58
Member since:2006-01-01
> In such strong wording, as you use, we should at least
> send letters of "cease and desist" to ALL THAT PEOPLE
> who distribute (e.g. via BeBits or BeShare) even
> unmodified BeOS PE version.
It's is not, I repeat NOT, illegal to distribute PE. It IS illegal to distribute a derrived work based on PE without ACCESS's permission/license.
PE was freely downloadable from Be's FTP server right up till the day they closed it. So long as you use it in a virtual partition and don't try to install it to your harddrive it's completely legal to own, distribute and use.
Member since:2005-08-18
"It's is not, I repeat NOT, illegal to distribute PE."
Oh yes it is. You should read the license that comes with PE. It spells it out quite clearly and even if it didn't you would still need permission from the copyright holder. Just because they give/gave it away that doesn't mean you are allowed to make copies and give it away.
Of course, this is all rather moot unless ACCESS cares.
Edited 2007-04-04 14:28
Member since:2006-02-19
Soulbender wrote:
1)"Unless you have received a written agreement from the copyright holder you are not allowed to distribute copies of PE, even less so modified copies of it." - so discuss it with him, not me.
2)I looked at my PE distro and didn't notice any explicit restriction about installing it onto real partition in bundled texts. Can you help me with explicit quote from your PE version which forbids that action?
Member since:
2006-02-19
In such strong wording, as you use, we should at least send letters of "cease and desist" to ALL THAT PEOPLE who distribute (e.g. via BeBits or BeShare) even unmodified BeOS PE version.
Not to say about other PE-based distribution with "added values" here and there.