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: Eric Sandall <eric AT sandall.us>
  • To: sm-discuss AT lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: Re: [SM-Discuss] ISO contrib file
  • Date: Thu, 10 Feb 2005 09:32:59 -0800

Quoting Karsten Behrmann <BearPerson AT gmx.net>:
> Benoit PAPILLAULT <benoit.papillault AT sourcemage.org> wrote:
> <snip>
> Andrew:
> > > Maybe it would be good to setup an official policy on this stuff that
> > > can be applied to all current and future things we release. We can come
> > > to a consensus on what our policy for copyrighting, changeloging, etc
> > > should be and then ensure that all files/products follow those
> guidelines.
> Yup, that would be a great idea. There are people occasionally that say
> "But I didn't read that anywhere", so a common policy would be great.

We'd just add that to the Social Contract, I believe[0].

> > For instance, I've heard that it's better to assign copyright to a
> > common organisation (like a project) to avoid the burden of contact all
> > the contributors if you want to change the original license, say from
> > GPL to dual GPL/BSD for instance.
> Yup, I'd say we should make "Source Mage" the owner of all our stuff
> (since it releases everything, I guess that is the case already)
> then everything can be decided by the community/devs/PL.
>
> > I also know that (in France at least) authorship is /in theory/
> > automatically granted whenever you make a work even if it is never
> > published. The problem being that it's very hard to proof and thus
> > national organisation (INPI in France) is trying to convince you that
> > you'd better registered everything, trademarks or patents (but of
> > course, it's a business for them).
> Yeah, but I guess we should once and for all say that everything submitted
> to the project is to be released under the GPL, which means that after
> changes (incorporating the work into the rest of the project) the project
> Source Mage can own the copyright of the whole and release it as its.

Our Social Contract already says that everything we (SMGL) releases is
released
under the GPL, including our documentation.

> (of course, the same GPL would permit anyone to do the same thing... change
> something (put their name at the top of source files for example) and
> release
> it as theirs. I have no problem with them doing that as long as they don't
> patent it in my face... But AFAIK the GPL wouldn't permit that)

Even if they did patent it we'd have a public record of prior art.

> > PS: I do not want to have my name in /every/ file...
> Okay, currently we have one and only one official place for credits: The
> ChangeLog. I have added all former contributors that I know of at the
> bottom. This ought to be enough IMO. If people insist on it we could add
> a menu option to the installer to view the changelog, I wouldn't need it.
> We might be legally required to put the ChangeLog onto the ISO though.

Including the ChangeLog would not hurt and may be a good idea for crediting
past
contributors, but I don't believe it would be viewed by many, if at all.

> One thing, regarding our old friend Hamish Greig (let's see if he picks this
> up and replies to this thread again):
> I've put him into the ChangeLog as He Who Does Not Wish To Be Named,
> since I think he deserves credit for what he's done, but has repeatedly
> asserted that he does not want his name mentioned.
>
> I'm not a lawyer, but does anything require us then to still keep his name
> around? We should since he's contributed to it, but in what seems to me a
> legally solid enough way he has freed us from this requirement. But again,
> I'm not a lawyer either. Maybe he will explicitly set this right.

It may not, but we've already had this discussion and decided that we won't
remove/change names in history files, even to an alias.

> So Far,
> Karsten

-sandalle

[0] http://wiki.sourcemage.org/index.php?page=SocialContract

--
Eric Sandall | Source Mage GNU/Linux Developer
eric AT sandall.us PGP: 0xA8EFDD61 | http://www.sourcemage.org/
http://eric.sandall.us/ | SysAdmin @ Inst. Shock Physics @ WSU
http://counter.li.org/ #196285 | http://www.shock.wsu.edu/

----------------------------------------------------------------
This message was sent using IMP, the Internet Messaging Program.




Archive powered by MHonArc 2.6.24.

Top of Page