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Subject: Re: [OT] An open letter to Martin Blume

Author: enrico carrisco

Date: 11:36:32 12/10/04

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On December 10, 2004 at 11:54:33, Martin Blume wrote:

>On December 10, 2004 at 11:37:13, Peter Skinner wrote:
>
>>This is a copy of the email that I just sent Martin:
>>--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>>Hello Martin,
>>
>>
>>So please grant me permission to host Arena and the situation can resolve
>>itself. We can then get back to what is important... Chess.
>>
>
>Hello Peter!
>
>It is too late now. The license agreements are quite clear of it. I am quoting
>myself from the copyright notes in the Arena distribution as well as from our
>Website:
>
>"You may distribute the content of the program package only in unmodified
>form. Especially, distribution of Arena GUI, SOS for Arena, Dragon, AnMon,
>Nejmet, Ruffian, Betsy, The Baron, Chispa, EL Chinito and for ELOstat on
>other webpages, newspaper, CDs, print and other media without the
>permission of authors Martin Blume, Rudolf Huber, Bruno LUCAS,
>Christian BARRETEAU, Jean-Christophe GABILLARD, Per-Ola Valfridsson,
>Landon W. Rabern, Richard Pijl, Federico Andrés Corigliano,
>Eugenio Castillo / Pascal Tang and Dr. Frank Schubert is not permitted."
>
>Regarding Arena that reads:
>
>"You may distribute the content of the program package only in unmodified
>form. Especially, distribution of Arena GUI [..] on
>other webpages [..] without the
>permission of author[..] Martin Blume [..] is not permitted."
>
>So you did not have the permission to offer my software Arena on your site, and
>you do not have the permission by me. So I am asking you to remove my software
>from your site.
>
>Best regards,
>Martin Blume

If only the word "especially" had been "however", things would have been so much
clearer.  Legal lingo or not, "especially" was not the best choice.
"Especially" is most commonly a supporting word for a previous statement -- but
here it is (obviously) used to mean "Above all" or "principally" (most
importantly.)

Nevertheless, the license (however much needing a revision for clarity) does
indeed state that Mr. Skinner is in violation for making the software available
on his web-site.  The argument that Mr. Skinner's distribution of Arena in this
manner is protected within the segment of the license agreement that allows
distribution to friends and comrades is only valid if only those individuals
have access to such a web-site.

It's an open and shut case in my opinion.

-elc.




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