[chimera-dev] Re: ANN: UCSF Chimera

[Ethan Merritt]

On Wednesday 18 June 2003 10:38, Eric Pettersen wrote:
> The Python part of the Chimera source code is distributed.  Eventually
> the C++ will be too, once the compilation process is organized and
> documented well enough that someone besides the internal developers
> would be able to follow it.

The fact that the python source is distributed makes these license
clauses even more problematic than if it were not.  
As it stands I am reluctant to even download the chimera source,
out of concern that reading it would open up the worst-case scenario
in which my future python code is considered "a derivative work",
having been tainted by knowledge of the details on the chimera source.
Yes, this is a paranoid view of licensing, but one supported by events
in the larger open source world (cue replay of the great 
SCO/IBM/linux soap opera now playing on a media channel near you).

If you are going to distribute the Chimera source, then you
should do so under some more reasonable open source license.
I do not like the GPL myself, but some variant of the "artistic license"
or the BSD or python licenses would probably work.

> According to Title 17, section 101 of the US code:
>
> 	A ''derivative work'' is a work based upon one or more
> 	preexisting works, such as a translation, musical arrangement,
> 	dramatization, fictionalization, motion picture version, sound
> 	recording, art reproduction, abridgment, condensation, or any
> 	other form in which a work may be recast, transformed, or
> 	adapted.  A work consisting of editorial revisions, annotations,
> 	elaborations, or other modifications which, as a whole, represent
> 	an original work of authorship, is a ''derivative work''.
>
> So again, I think the license only restricts modification and
> redistribution of Chimera itself.  I agree wholly that the license
> should state this explicitly, in terms a non-lawyer can understand.

You may think so, and I may agree with you it should be so, but
if there is any universal consensus on the issue at all, it is that the
legal definition as applied to computer code has yet to be pinned 
down.  The current SCO brouhaha is an extreme case, but just look -
they are claiming that all unix development since about 1985 is a
"derivitive work" based on the System V code.  We all hope they are
laughed out of court, but the point is that billion dollar law suits are
being filed over the issue of what is or is not a derivitive work.

-- 
Ethan A Merritt       merritt at u.washington.edu
Biomolecular Structure Center Box 357742
University of Washington, Seattle, WA 98195