On using leaked source code (was Re: Creating GSM Users Association (GSMUA))

Hi Mychaela, [this is getting slightly off-topic, so I'm removing the openbsc(a)lists.osmocom.org list] On Fri, Jun 09, 2017 at 06:18:37PM -0800, Mychaela Falconia wrote: Correct. As the given source code was proven on-line in the public for more than half a year, with thousands of downloads counted by the hosting platform, no copyright holder would still have had a valid claim that the information contained therein would be a "trade secret". So we could use the information learned from there, but we can of course not re-use any copyrightable portion of the code, as that would infringe on copyright. It doesn't matter what license we chose for our code. As soon as we incorporate copyrightable portions of third party source code without explicit permission of its copyright holder, we are in violation of copyright. That's both a civil and criminal offence in many jurisdictions, including those where the developers at the time (mostly EU) reside in. So our procedure was not "for license worship reasons", but for the simple reason that we wanted to ensure both our own personal freedom as well as the continued freedom of the code we wrote, with no attack surface for any copyright holder to take it down (and/or extort "damages" or the like). Regards, Harald -- - Harald Welte <laforge(a)gnumonks.org> http://laforge.gnumonks.org/ ============================================================================ "Privacy in residential applications is a desirable marketing option." (ETSI EN 300 175-7 Ch. A6)