Re: RE: [ossig] IOSN Releases Draft Primer on Free/Open SourceSoftware Licensing for Public Review

["Raja Iskandar Shah" <ris.riscniaga@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

> 
> If this 
> "a simplistic view of things by the ministry that if not 
> corrected, may
> result in more fear and uncertainty over the use of OSS, 
> especially among the local business community. "
> 
> So does one correct this, education and awareness will be good 
> place to
> start. Like the one done recently. Luckily they were not caught for
> distributing what they think is a Copyrighted software :( ....sigh.
> 

this simplistic view, that oss is not copyrighted software, by the oss
community if not corrected, may result in more confusion and uncertainty
over the development of OSS, especially among the local industry.

under the malaysian copyright act, all original software published in
media in malaysian is automatically protected by copyright act. meaning
that you can't take adodb publish it in binary format and claim that
it's your own.

even with freebsd:
"
Redistribution and use in source and binary forms, with or without
modification, are permitted provided that the following conditions are met:

   1. Redistributions of source code must retain the above copyright
notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer.
   2. Redistributions in binary form must reproduce the above copyright
notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer in the
documentation and/or other materials provided with the distribution.
...."

even with gpl version 2:
"....
1. You may copy and distribute verbatim copies of the Program's source
code as you receive it, in any medium, provided that you conspicuously
and appropriately publish on each copy an appropriate copyright notice
and disclaimer of warranty; keep intact all the notices that refer to
this License and to the absence of any warranty; and give any other
recipients of the Program a copy of this License along with the Program.

You may charge a fee for the physical act of transferring a copy, and
you may at your option offer warranty protection in exchange for a fee.
..."

notice the word 'copyright' in both of the licenses above.

my point is that malaysia as a whole has a long long long way to go in
appreciating oss. even the oss community is still "blur - blur"


freebsd license: http://www.freebsd.org/copyright/freebsd-license.html

gnu general public license: http://opensource.org/licenses/gpl-license.php

malaysian copyright act: http://www.mipc.gov.my/media/download/Copyright.pdf

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