Public SourceMage Discussion List

[Andrew <afrayedknot AT thefrayedknot.armory.com>]

On Thu, Feb 10, 2005 at 08:48:38AM +0100, Benoit PAPILLAULT wrote:
> Andrew a ?crit :
> ><snip>
> >
> >>That's pretty much how I understand it as well, thanks 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.
> >
> >Than if anyone has any questions they refer to the policy, and when we
> >make adjustments to fit that policy we'll have already come to a consensus
> >on what that policy is so there wont be any question over whether we
> >can do it or not.
> 
> That what I was asking. I was not asking for what people thinks here on 
> the subject, I was asking for reference to documents that could lead 
> anyone to the same conclusion on whether such thing is legal or not and 
> how it has to be done. Maybe it's not the right place however...

Well currently there isnt an smgl document for this so usually the first
step to getting there is try to get an answer to the questions posed :-)

I think we both had the same idea and intent here I just wanted trying
to lead the discussion back into the direction of setting a policy.

> 
> 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.
> 
> 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).
> 

Yea, but remember that authorship, ownership, patent holder, copyright
owner, liscensor, and releasor all bear different meanings :) So I dont
think the question is ever about removing authorship its just about who
is the proper copyright owner in this case, they can be the same, but
can also be different. Authorship (IMO) is best left to be described in
ChangeLogs and through revision history.

-Andrew