Ultimately, the issue is about licensing rights on modules, which appears to be a very touchy subject around here. I suspect this is so because without actual licenses, which are essentially legal agreements (I'm not talking about .conf files which are not legal agreements), its pretty much impossible to claims legal rights and restrictions exist without proof.<div>
<br></div><div>As people like to point out, Copyright resides with the Copyright owner. For a third party to 'claim' the right to distribute text they are not the Copyright owner of, explicit license had to have been given (a legally binding agreement). What this means for mirrors is this:</div>
<div><div><br><div>Anyone can run an FTP service.</div><div>Anyone can call the directories anything they want in said FTP service.</div><div>What people place in their FTP servers is where the controversy starts.</div><div>
<br></div><div>Others, (not me) have already pointed out that Crosswire doesn't (and can't) control modules once they leave Crosswire's repo. This means Crosswire, as the non-owner, has nothing to say about modules elsewhere. Crosswire tries to asserts legal right over some modules however. There are only two ways under copyright law, Crosswire can exercise rights over copyrighted work:</div>
<div><br></div><div>1. Direct Ownership. Para 106 of of US Copyright law says that the Copyright owner has exclusive rights over their wok, so Crosswire would have to prove it were the Copyright Owner; or</div><div>2. Transfer and Licensing of rights. The Owner can transfer rights through formal agreement specificaly expressing those rights (and ultimately granted through a written instrument, signed by the grantor). This is a license, or possibly exclusive license. Under US law, exclusive licenses must be recorded in the US Copyright office or exclusive license is not valid (Para 408)</div>
<div><br></div>If Crosswire has been exclusively license then, it may establish a rule only certain repositories may distribute modules, but the terms of this license (with the Copyright owner) are not secret (and indeed a matter of public record).</div>
<div>If Crosswire has not been exclusively licensed however, Crosswire has no legal right to prohibit others from distributing modules it freely distributes in a non-commercial manner (however much it rants and maligns others).</div>
<div><br></div><div dir="ltr">That means for there to be a *.<a href="http://crosswire.org">crosswire.org</a> 'rule' Crosswire's exclusive license must be registered and public, or it lacks authority to assert rights over text it doesn't own. P<span style>eople should not get upset when this rule is not followed then.<span></span></span></div>
<div dir="ltr"><span style><br></span></div><div>(Don't shoot the messenger because you don't like the law)</div>
<div><br></div><div>~A</div><div><br><div>On Thursday, January 10, 2013, David Blue wrote:<br><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex">
<div><div>Based on the*.<a href="http://crosswire.org" target="_blank">crosswire.org</a> rule I would say the best option when and if mirrors are needed is to have some sort of round robin dns that picks a mirror from an internal list the way <a href="http://microsoft.com" target="_blank">microsoft.com</a> or my Linux distro does <a href="http://download.opensuse.org" target="_blank">download.opensuse.org</a> for it's package repos. Sorry for the top post'<br>
<br><div class="gmail_quote">Nic Carter <<a>niccarter@mac.com</a>> wrote:<blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex;border-left:1px solid rgb(204,204,204);padding-left:1ex">
<pre style="white-space:pre-wrap;word-wrap:break-word;font-family:sans-serif;margin-top:0px"><br>Sent from my phone, hence this email may be short...<br><br>On 08/01/2013, at 8:51, Andrew Thule <<a>thulester@gmail.com</a>> wrote:<br>
<br><br><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0pt 0pt 1ex 0.8ex;border-left:1px solid #729fcf;padding-left:1ex">As long as Crosswire has policies in place govererning official mirrors there should no no worries mirrors are out of sync, in which case preferred mirror selection can be left to the user, and indeed mirror checking behaviour configurable.</blockquote>
<br>Yup, policy is no mirrors at this point in time.<br>It is thought that there _may_ be room in the future for some, but these will be done from a *.<a href="http://crosswire.org" target="_blank">crosswire.org</a> domain so as to satisfy copyright requirements.<br>
<br>Easy :)<br><br>Thanks for your thoughts & I'm glad we can now put this discussion to rest. :)<br><br><hr><br>sword-devel mailing list: <a>sword-devel@crosswire.org</a><br>
<a href="http://www.crosswire.org/mailman/listinfo/sword-devel" target="_blank">http://www.crosswire.org/mailman/listinfo/sword-devel</a><br>Instructions to unsubscribe/change your settings at above page<br></pre></blockquote>
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-- <br>
Sent from my Android phone with K-9 Mail. Please excuse my brevity.</div></div></blockquote></div></div></div>