Subject:
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Is the LDraw parts database free?
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Newsgroups:
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lugnet.cad.dev
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Date:
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Tue, 16 Nov 1999 08:58:55 GMT
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Viewed:
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520 times
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I know that the LDraw software remains the intellectual property of
James Jessiman's immediate family.
But what about the parts (primitives, parts) database as a whole? Is it
the property of James Jessiman's immediate family as well? Or is it
free in the GPL sense of the word, meaning that people can copy it,
change and re-distribute it?
Here's an example: To obtain the parts database, one would have to
download the basic LDraw package and the updates. These are .EXE format
files, and can only be installed on an MS-DOS (or Windows) system.
In the future, we may (or may not) see some UNIX flavored tools for
handling LDraw DAT files. Obviously, such programs will be useless
without the parts database. What makes sense to do in this case would
be to install the parts database on an MS-DOS system, extract the parts
database with some kind of archive tool (e.g. tar) and distribute this
along with the UNIX flavoured tools. In other word, one would have to
download the parts database, change and redistribute it. Would this be
legal to do?
I think this is an important question to resolve with respect to the
future of the LDraw community, and would like to see some discussions on
it.
Fredrik
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Message has 5 Replies:
 | | Re: Is the LDraw parts database free?
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| (...) You forgot that there's a DOS emulator for Unix and you don't need to run the .EXE files, they are ARJ self extracting archives so running "arj x file.exe" will extract the files as well (and arj can be easily found for Linux systems, it's (...) (24 years ago, 16-Nov-99, to lugnet.cad.dev)
| | | Re: Is the LDraw parts database free?
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| Fredrik Glöckner skrev i meddelandet ... (...) This question has been on my mind too a bit, as I have thought of the possibility to 'import' LDRAW parts to BlockCAD (with a lot of manual massaging of course, but still using the work done on the (...) (24 years ago, 16-Nov-99, to lugnet.cad.dev)
| | | Re: Is the LDraw parts database free?
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| [ Just for the record: IANAL ] Fredrik: (...) The _collection_ of LDraw files is strictly speaking owned collectively by all of us who in some way have contributed to the collection. The _individual_ LDraw files are owned by whoever worked on them. (...) (24 years ago, 17-Nov-99, to lugnet.cad.dev)
| | | Re: Is the LDraw parts database free?
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| (...) The files James published are copyrighted, and his family has control on the copyright. They have given 'us', the L-CAD group, permission to continue to publish and maintain his work. The additional parts, as Jacob said, are copyrighted by (...) (24 years ago, 17-Nov-99, to lugnet.cad.dev)
| | | Re: Is the LDraw parts database free?
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| (...) So do we want to clearly delineate what people can, and cannot, do with the parts library? Or is it better to leave it fuzzy? If people have to ask permission before doing certain actions (such as translating and/or redistributing), who do (...) (24 years ago, 18-Nov-99, to lugnet.cad.dev)
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