[DECtalk] Permissions, Rights, etc. (was Re: Report of a successful use of dectalk with graphical Linux.)

[Karen Lewellen]

Hi Jayson,
My own apologies  to you, and the list for feeding Josh's fire as it were.
working down emails, only now reaching this one.
As I just  said to Kyle though, if locating a copyright holder, or there 
representative can be done, I feel it might be possible to negotiate for 
such   a set  of 
licenses.
Many  of the larger repositories  for open source software, the Linux 
foundation, the Mozilla foundation < makers of Firefox> are rooted in the 
nonprofit sector in part for this reason.
There are simply too many rich avenues for the dectalk code for it to be 
lost to time if that resonates.
Clearly Josh is not the person for this task though, speaking personally. 
Karen



On Wed, 22 Feb 2023, Jayson Smith wrote:

> Hi,
>
> This message is directed at Josh. Please, for the love of all that is good 
> and holy, stop bothering DECtalk developers about this. If I understand my 
> DECtalk history and facts correctly, the developers who are still active in 
> the DECtalk community do not, in fact, own the copyright to the code. This 
> means they do not have the right to give anyone permission to use the code. 
> Even if they say they don't care what we do with it, that statement isn't 
> worth a hill of beans because they do not have the right to make that 
> decision. Only the current copyright holder or his/her/their authorized 
> representative has the right to make that decision.
>
> Also, as others have stated, an audio recording is not going to cut it in a 
> legal context. You need an official document signed by the copyright holder. 
> Not that I'm a lawyer or anything, but while some people might be willing to 
> work with someone just saying they don't care what we do with this code, 
> companies and organizations that might want to include DECtalk in their own 
> software distributions (think screen readers, Linux distributions, etc) have 
> to be absolutely sure, beyond a doubt, that they have the legal right to do 
> so. Just an "I don't care" is nowhere near enough to give these 
> companies/organizations the assurance they need that the code is free and 
> clear from a legal perspective.
>
> If you wish to continue this discussion with others, please do so off-list. I 
> have nothing further to say on this matter, as I've said all I know to say.
>
> For everyone else, I'm sorry this has happened again.
>
> Jayson
>
> On 2/22/2023 7:10 PM, Kyle via Dectalk wrote:
>>  A recorded conversation is not legally binding for the purposes of
>>  DECTalk, since the LICENSE file states that only a written valid license
>>  from Fonix or an authorized sublicenser authorizes me or anyone else to
>>  even possess this code. I'm certain that a copy of the GPL or any other
>>  open source license signed off by a former Fonix employee or by an
>>  original author of the code who holds the most recent copyright would
>>  suffice, but it would in fact need to be documented that such a written
>>  license came from a person authorized to license the code in such a way.
>> 
>> ~ Kyle
>>
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>
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