If the original author did not put a copyright notice of some kind, a statement
that it is in the public domain, or a license telling you that you have
permission, you have no right to use the software at all, and certainly not to
distribute it. It automatically acquires copyright as it is written, and that
basically removes most of your rights, except as defined by the author. You
can't generally do much more than look, i.e. read the source, without some kind
of permission, and the thing that gives you permission is technically a license.
Note that running the software usually involves making a temporary copy in
RAM. It is rather disappointing that after umpteen years of Groklaw, people
are still confusing the lack of a copyright notice with a right to copy. I
thought that the subject had been covered accurately and comprehensively many
times. Or maybe the trolls have crawled out from under their bridges again? [ Reply to This | Parent | # ]
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