On 3/29/08, Santiago Gala <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > > El jue, 27-03-2008 a las 21:42 -0700, Matthieu Riou escribió: > (...snip...) > > > From what I understand of copyright law, it's not (of course IANAL, > > etc...). > > Distribution (or publication in copyright lingo) is defined as: > > > > "Publication" is the distribution of copies or phonorecords of a > > work > > to the public by sale or other transfer of ownership, or by > > rental, > > lease, > > or lending. The offering to distribute copies or phonorecords to a > > group > > > > of persons for purposes of further distribution, public > > performance, or > > public display, constitutes publication. A public performance or > > display > > > > of a work does not of itself constitute publication. > > > > > The way it is written I take performance/display in the sense of > "executing" the score (for music), playing the play (for theater), > showing the movie, reading the poetry, exhibiting (displaying, for > paintings)... > > > > > A source repository is in the category of "public performance or > > display", > > there's no purpose of further distribution. It doesn't constitute > > publication. > > > > > I'd say that "performance" of software is executing it (like in music or > theater, software is a "dynamic art"). Now I'm not sure if the "public" > word stretches the meaning too much. But I'm pretty much sure that > giving public access to a SCM repository amounts to distribution. Just > notice how trac, git, mercurial and other UIs for SCM offer the download > of a tarball for arbitrary revisions, for instance.
So what makes you pretty sure public access to a SCM amounts to distribution in the definition of publication? AFAICT, there's still no purpose of distribution. We don't offer the download of a tarball from our repositories. That others offer doesn't change what our source repository is. Re: the purpose of further distribution, gentoo, just to give an > example, offers sometimes -svn/-git/-cvs versioned packages, and those > are built by accessing the SCM repository, checking out a HEAD copy, > building the binaries and installing. I've seen this kind of packages > (repackaged) in debian and rpm distributions too. and I've seen plenty > of XXX-patched-cvs-200XXXXX.tgz/jar files in our own distributions. Which means that these pakages, if they're produced and published with an intent to be distributed could very well be a publication. Still doesn't mean that offering a repository is by itself a publication. Cheers, Matthieu Regards > Santiago > > > > Cheers, > > Matthieu > > > -- > Santiago Gala > http://memojo.com/~sgala/blog/ > > > > --------------------------------------------------------------------- > To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] > For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] > >
