On Fri, Jan 08, 1999 at 07:33:06AM -0600, Philip Thiem wrote: > I'm not a laywer so I'm double checking my guesswork. > > I want to add drivers for the Xerox Docuprint Series Printer > I have been offered there "special additions" to HP PCL3 codes > However they request I sign a non-discolsure agreement > Considering both gs-aladdin and gs (gnu gs) I was think that > any driver I make would be considered a dervived work > So I could not write the drivers with the information from Xerox > and still be ok with the non-discolsure agreement. > > Am I Right? I am going to be contacting the guy via phone > and discuss this finally, and see if I can get them to > budge. If you sign any kind of NDA, I suggest never, ever authoring any code that has anything to do with drivers for Xerox printers. Maybe not anything that even has to do with printer drivers or PostScript whatsoever. Reason being, corporate lawyers exist solely to harass people. Even if you write code that is derived entirely from "unprivileged" knowledge, they'll make sure the burden is on you to prove that in court. Even if you can do so, they'll make sure the trial takes so long that you'll be tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars in debt due to legal fees before it is all over. NDAs are Pure Evil. Avoid them, or think very gravely about the liberties you are effectively signing away. To provide a short answer to your question, I doubt there is any way you could use information obtained under an NDA to contribute to free software. Not without getting into legal trouble with Xerox (or whoever is offering you this information), or without having to put a very onerous license on them which would preclude their admission into the software you're interested in enhancing. -- G. Branden Robinson | A committee is a life form with six or Debian GNU/Linux | more legs and no brain. branden@ecn.purdue.edu | -- Robert Heinlein cartoon.ecn.purdue.edu/~branden/ |
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