Neither myself or Cengiz can interprete USC legal issues. If this was me, I'd contact USC legal for a valid ruling. % % The way Cengiz explained USC's copyright to me it was supposed to mean: % % You can not sell this stuff (the software) without giving us a part % of the profit. % % It was not supposed to mean: if you are a commercial company, you can't use it. % % After the RA project was about providing infrastructure to support an % Internet that had become commercial, right? % % In any case, no one, other than USC, can remove their copyright from % the code but if the real interpretation of the copyright statement % happens to be the more restrictive one, then the RIPE NCC would % certainly have a problem with this code, because we *HAVE* to make % the software we develop available for use by the community. % % Joao % % At 05:13 -0700 4/10/01, Bill Manning wrote: % >% Like I said, most (techie) people don't give a hoot, but legal % >% departments at largish outfits can seriously halt Progress(tm). Although % >% RIPE and the RIPE NCC are non-profit organisations, most of the members % >% are most definitely out to make a (euro-)buck. It's only proper that if % >% these tools are to be hosted/provided/maintained by the RIPE NCC, that % >% the restrictive license is removed. Replacing it with a RIPE/RIPE NCC % >% copyright may make non-RIPE members nervous, so I still think a GNU-like % >% license is the safest and fairest option. % > % > % > I spect that the USC tag still claims that it needs to stay % > w/ the code so RIPE would need to do a "clean-room" % > reimplementation to expunge the USC tag. % > % > Of course RIPE could also cut a deal w/ USC on broad % > commercial use of the tools. That has often proved to % > be the cheapest/easiest course. % >% % >% Cheers, % >% Steven % >% % > % > % >-- % >--bill % % % -- % -- --bill