[sword-devel] Exclusive Rights Granting Crosswire License to Distribute

[Andrew Thule]

On Sun, Jan 6, 2013 at 11:12 AM, DM Smith <dmsmith at crosswire.org> wrote:

No, we cannot publish the terms of licensing agreements. Think about it.
> These are confidential, privileged contracts between organizations.
>

Umm, with software Licenses, Acceptable Use Policies, Copyright
Restrictions and Copyright limitations are not typically priviledge ..

The contractual agreement itself may be, but License for use, especially in
public forums is not, otherwise how can you come down so hard on someone
like me for trying to abide by licensing agreement when those agreements
are not know?

You're saying on the one had I have to abide by Crosswire's agreement with
the Copyright Owner and on the other hand I cannot know what those
provisions are.

I think if you check the contract, you'll see the actually license
agreement as an Appendix or something of that sort for this very reason.


The contracts are dictated by the publishers. When asked what they need to
> say, we provide the broadest description of what they need to say at
> minimum, but we don't ever suggest particular wording or terms. If the
> terms are unacceptable to us, we communicate that clearly and let them
> either amend their terms or withdraw the module.
>
Yes, true, however Crosswire as the licensee is not dealing with paper, but
with digital forms of the text, so presumably as the licensee you've worked
through some of the issues related to dealing with 'digial format'.
At least your this recent business between Chris, Peter and I suggests that
this is the case.

Although the terms of Crosswire license to use of these Copyright works are
not clear to me (dispite what Chris and Peter would have you believe)
because I've seen no such terms, they are apparently clear to Chris and
Peter.   I have no trouble believing Chris and Peter have seen them, or
they wouldn't be calling me to account.



> We only need to prove our assertion with the publishers. Which we have do
> on occasion.
>
Agreed.


>
> The wording of your request is inviting a "go pound sand" response. Please
> be careful in how you word things.
>
> DM, I will be careful how I word things because such advice is always
prudent advice.

That said, I deny I was telling anyone to 'pound sand'.  I am disappointed
at the way my character, purpose, and contribution is contantly maligned in
these discussions.  It send the signal that 'new-comers' and their ideas
are not welcome here dispite the claim this is an open community. This
treatment on the part of some is not uniform by any means.

However the method of dealing with conflict among Christian's is covered in
the bible, and my disappointment stems from the idea that not all who
engage in these disagreements make efforts to disagree on biblical
principles.  (I assume everyone here is a Christian).

For example, I am particularly disappointed that I was accused of breaking
Crosswire's licensing restrictions, yet no one has bothered to either
publically name one module that was available at my repo that should have
been, or provide access to Crosswire's license as evidence this was wrong.

If Crosswire has legitimate license to distribution Copyright text and is
going to use this license agreement like a hammer, it's not unrasonable to
ask that it be made public, otherwise it has no right to defer to it in
issues of disagreement.
~A
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