Skip to Content.
Sympa Menu

sm-discuss - Re: [SM-Discuss] ISO contrib file

sm-discuss AT lists.ibiblio.org

Subject: Public SourceMage Discussion List

List archive

Chronological Thread  
  • From: Seth Alan Woolley <seth AT positivism.org>
  • To: Benoit PAPILLAULT <benoit.papillault AT sourcemage.org>
  • Cc: sm-discuss AT lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: Re: [SM-Discuss] ISO contrib file
  • Date: Wed, 9 Feb 2005 13:11:52 -0800

On Wed, Feb 09, 2005 at 09:19:11PM +0100, Benoit PAPILLAULT wrote:
> Karsten Behrmann a écrit :
> >Hi all!
> >We recently removed all the copyright junk from the top of smgl.install.
> >The question came up if that was legally completely right and if
> >those people should not be mentioned somewhere.
> >So (also in absence of a well-kept ChangeLog) there is no other
> >place anyone could see who worked on the ISO.
> >
> >So I whipped up a /CONTRIB file for the ISO to put all credits in.
> >It currently resides at //sgl/cauldron/proj/proj2/iso/skeleton/CONTRIB
> >I'm still wondering how to sort the people... maybe alphabetically would
> >be best...
>
> The installer (currently the single file smgl.install) is a standalone
> software (but so far distributed only as part of the ISO). It might be
> released as such (ie standalone) in the future. That's why I think it's
> better to keep copyright notice along with name of the contributor in
> the file itself. This does not prevent us from maintaining a CONTRIB
> file as well...

I don't think the status of standaloneness matters that much.

>
> The next question I raised is whether "Source Mage GNU/Linux" can be
> considered as a legal entity to which copyright can be assigned. AFAIK,
> "Source Mage GNU/Linux" is not registered as a company, non profit
> organisation, association or something like that.
>
> I'd like those questions to be answered for the sake of clarity.

It exists by virtue of the social contract. I could file it with a
land-owning jurisdiction in a day for fifty dollars (25 for non-profit
corporation and 25 for the name registration). We'd need to make a
yearly report and such, but in any case, I don't think it's that big of
a deal either unless we wanted to enforce the copyright, in which case,
copyright exists the moment it is written according to the Berne
Convention, notice notwithstanding. Technically the individual
contributors will always own their own code portions unless they cede it
specifically to the organization. Technically also, because the
original portions are released by the GPL, one can copyright the
aggregate of others' contributions (so long as the respective licenses
allow) and copyright the collection.

At least in US law and probably in most countries that are recognizers
of the Berne Convention on Copyrights.

So, either/or, both, or none as far as labelling is concerned.
Copyright registration with an enforcing entity for criminal and tort
purposes is another matter, and can actually be done pretty late in the
process, like right before you sue somebody.

IANAL, too.

Seth

--
Seth Alan Woolley [seth at positivism.org], SPAM/UCE is unauthorized
Key id EF10E21A = 36AD 8A92 8499 8439 E6A8 3724 D437 AF5D EF10 E21A
http://smgl.positivism.org:11371/pks/lookup?op=get&search=0xEF10E21A
Security Team Leader Source Mage GNU/Linux http://www.sourcemage.org

Attachment: pgpqavVBPMTGX.pgp
Description: PGP signature




Archive powered by MHonArc 2.6.24.

Top of Page