[ogb-discuss] datasheet repository

[Alan Coopersmith]

Garrett D'Amore wrote:
> Alan Coopersmith wrote:
>> This sounds like a issue for the drivers community, nothing the OGB
>> needs to be involved with.   The only advice I have is you will need
>> to be very careful to ensure you only copy documents for which you
>> have permission from the creators, to make sure you are not violating
>> either copyright or non-disclosure agreements.   Just because you can
>> download it freely doesn't mean you can republish it.
>>   
> 
> This last comment has me concerned.  I've always assumed that I could
> repost a document that  I downloaded off the Internet, assuming that I
> didn't agree to anything stating otherwise beforehand.

While I'm not a lawyer, and Sun has plenty of those to give you legal
advice, to the best of my knowledge, the complete opposite is true -
unless you are explicitly given permission to reproduce or copyright
is disclaimed, you cannot legally republish anything you downloaded.
Under US copyright law & international copyright treaties, no notice
of copyright or specification of a license is necessary - the assumption
is that material is copyrighted and that you have no rights to copy it
unless stated otherwise.

See http://www.templetons.com/brad/copymyths.html for some more discussion
of this.

-- 
	-Alan Coopersmith-           alan.coopersmith at sun.com
	 Sun Microsystems, Inc. - X Window System Engineering