[Fsfe-france-gpl] Rencontre APP

[Marc SCHAEFER]

As promised,

APP Meeting  (28th of june, Geneva Airport).

  Themes:
    see http://www.legalis.net/jnet/rencontre-geneve_280601.htm

  My impressions:
     It was definitely interesting to be informed on the legal basis 
     of the author rights (droits d'auteur, Uhreberrecht). Also, the
     part on the ASP issue (Application Service Provider) and the
     problems/danger of that approach regarding the liability and
     long term viability.

     Then we started to talk about free software. Most of the attendees
     were novice in that theme, and Anne Possoz and I (EPFL/SIC) have
     attempted to define it the better we could.

     See my slides in French on:
        http://www-internal.alphanet.ch/~schaefer/some_files/APP/

     The conclusion was that free/libre software requires strong
     intellectual property protection: it can only be free as long
     as those rights can be enforced, especially in a copyleft
     situation.

     But how to ensure that a claim will be valid in Court ?  IDDnet.org
     proposes a (currently free-of-charge) service to deposit software
     signatures, in the form of an md5sum. This md5sum can then be used
     later (if you keep the CD/source/binaries that you used to create
     it) to prove you wrote the software in the first place.

     If you have missed the APP/IDDnet.org presentation, it is going to
     be done again (but not mine) on the 22nd of August 2001, at the
     /ch/open Berner OBL (see http://www.ch-open.ch/html/events/lunchbe.html),
     in English.

merci :)