[ On Sunday, March 17, 2002 at 02:27:51 (-0800), John Nemeth wrote: ]
> Subject: Re: new IPFilter
>
>      Ick!  For my purposes, its going to depend on how they defined
> non-commercial use.

You are worried about nothing (and I think so is TNF, for that matter).

It's easy to see how QNX have defined their rules, and hopefully as easy
to understand.  Here's the copyright notice from the top of the file in
question:

/*
 * Copyright 2001, QNX Software Systems Ltd. All Rights Reserved
 * 
 * This source code has been published by QNX Software Systems Ltd. (QSSL).
 * However, any use, reproduction, modification, distribution or transfer of
 * this software, or any software which includes or is based upon any of this
 * code, is only permitted under the terms of the QNX Open Community License
 * version 1.0 (see licensing.qnx.com for details) or as otherwise expressly
 * authorized by a written license agreement from QSSL. For more information,
 * please email licensing@qnx.com.
 *
 */

That's apparently a copyright license, which is a special kind of
limited contract that, by placing such a notice on a work, can be
entered into in an anonymous fashion by a copyright owner with any owner
of a legal copy of the work.  Such a license may be used to revoke
certain rights granted by copyright law to the copyright owner, or to
transfer one or more of them to the legal owner of a copy of the work.

Copyright law defines the word "use" a whole lot differently than the
average computer user does.  Under copyright law the word "use"
specifically refers to uses under copyright law, such as the
reproduction and (re)distribution (which includes stage performance,
public broadcast, private viewings to attract business, excerpting,
inclusion in a collective work, etc.) of a work protected by copyright.

Furthermore under copyright law the copyright owner may only seek
remedies as allowed under the copyright law.  Since both QNX and Darren
Reed are giving away their software, about the only important rights
they can reserve are the right to change their licenses and their moral
rights.  I.e. don't make fun of their code in a public and damaging way
unless you want to risk being sued!  ;-)  [There's also the right to
make derrivative works, which is allowed by Darren, but may not be
allowed by QNX.]

Even if QNX were to try to treat the above as a shrink-wrap license and
argue that they mean "execution in a computer", they could not.  In
Canada (where you, I, and QNX all reside) there's no way for them to
enforce a shrink-wrap license -- such things are illegal here.

Under most copyright laws (including, and especially Canada's, at least
until and unless the damn USA force us to change our law) there's no way
to restrict the private use of a legitimately obtained copy of a work
except with respect to the specific rights granted by copyright.
Execution of a computer program, even to provide a profitable service,
is not, so far as I can deterimine (IANAL, but I have a well studied
copy of the Canadian Copyright Act and regulations), equivalent under
Canadian law to a "performance" or "broadcast".  Computer programs are
considered (in Canada at least) to be "literary" works.  (See, for
example, http://strategis.ic.gc.ca/sc_mrksv/cipo/cp/cp_circ_7-e.html)

So you should be OK for _any_ run-time usage provided you can show that
you've installed each instance with a legitimately obtained, legal, copy,
eg. from any anonymous FTP mirror site hosting IP Filter.

(Presumably Darren has examined out the QNX "Open Community License" and
is abiding by its terms.  Since you will use an anonymously obtained
copy there's no possible way for QNX or Darren to prove that you did not
separately and legally obain each and every copy you run.)

-- 
								Greg A. Woods

+1 416 218-0098;  <gwoods@acm.org>;  <g.a.woods@ieee.org>;  <woods@robohack.ca>
Planix, Inc. <woods@planix.com>; VE3TCP; Secrets of the Weird <woods@weird.com>