While people have their feelings of licensing and such, I have mine, so here we go:
Developers and their software:
While software is a long and enduring process to develop, one must question the integrity of the software and the code:
- Was it developed by the author exclusively?
- Was it based off of open source code?
Unfortunately this cannot be known by the public if the software is closed source. And with Open Source licensing, Open Source can not be modified and then have a license change to anything other than Open Source.
When developers get a certain attitude towards their software and start considering their "baby" their "property", this leads to an undesirable author and software. They do in fact have the right to choose what license is applied, however, without a copyright, developers do not have a legal say where their software is available from. This is just like an artist's work, they must copyright their work. Then, and only then, do they have a legal right to declare infringement on their "property". Please keep this in mind.
This also goes to the issues involving the morality or "reskinning" or changing. This is a morality issue if under an open source license. If it is a closed source license, like the Zune software, then it is an issue.
Thus being said, I will bring up a question that has probably been on some people's mind since we originally skinned the Zune software... Did we break the EULA when originally skinning the Zune software? Yes. I will be the first to admit that. We reverse-engineered Microsoft's baby and made it fit our needs.
When developers get a certain attitude towards their software and start considering their "baby" their "property", this leads to an undesirable author and software. They do in fact have the right to choose what license is applied, however, without a copyright, developers do not have a legal say where their software is available from. This is just like an artist's work, they must copyright their work. Then, and only then, do they have a legal right to declare infringement on their "property". Please keep this in mind.
While encouraging open source is the best thing to do, it is not right to claim that developers have to copyright their work themselves in order to have exclusive rights to their work. That is just not true.
To what does copyright apply?
Copyright applies to all original literary, dramatic, musical, and artistic works. These include books, otherwritings, music, sculptures, paintings, photographs, films, plays, television and radio programs, and computer programs. Copyright also applies to other subject matter including sound recordings (such as records, cassettes, and tapes), performer's performances, and communication signals.
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How do I obtain copyright?
You acquire copyright automatically when you create an original work or other subject matter.
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"Against logic there is no armor like ignorance." - Laurence J. Peter
Yeah, I may not have a copyright, but I still own my work. It's my own choice whether or not I want people to have that work [the code.] I usually just tell people I'd rather them not backwards engineer my stuff, but if they really care that badly....
An opinion on licensing
