> > Reasonable attempts at contact ... > Is that common sense talking or someone who actually practices law? I don't mean this > as any kind of insult, but let's admit that copyright disputes are rarely > straight-forward affairs. "We posted a notice on some websites" strikes me as a weak > defense but hey ... IANAL.
Partly common sense, partly lawyer interpreted. Giving legal notice of a change in license gives you about as much defensibly as you could hope for when the author of certain parts of code are not known. It's a good faith effort that goes a long way with a judge if things go south with anyone who shows up to the party late.
> > Its all about how defensible you want your stance to be > Precisely, exactly the point. Either admit that it's a practical,best-effort, > good-faith attempt that will be imperfect and open to legitimate challenge or go > whole-hog and do it right. Either approach is fine, but don't do one and claim it to > be the other. > > I recall it being mentioned somewhere in one of these recent threads that a long term > desire is to be able to move MAME/MESS in whole or part to an OSI approved license > that, if the need arose, would actually be defensible. If that is truly the jewel in > some peoples eyes then I can't fathom why there isn't a clamor to seek the > opinion/advice of a real IP lawyer. Heck, the EFF/FSF might do so gratis. Certainly > in the cabal of developers that is MAME/MESS someone knows someone.
Real IP lawyers cost real money. Anyone working pro-bono on something of this size probably isn't qualified to work on it.