Hi Sam, > > /* Compiz plugin 'group' > * > * group.cpp > * > * Copyright (c) 2010 The OpenCompositing Foundation > * Authors: Danny Baumann [general idea] <email> > * Dennis Kasprzyk [nice animations] <email> > * Patrick Nikalaus [cairoization] <email> > * Roi Cohen [cairoization] <email> > * Sam Spilsbury [ported to compiz 0.9] <email> > * > * This code is licenced under the GPL v2 blah blah blah > */ >
I hope you didn't use the real copyright header. ;-) > What this does in effect is grant a copyright licence to 'The > OpenCompositing Foundation' which is to be run by the Compiz Council. > I feel that this would be effective in case we ever needed to change > the licence of our code since what the project has found is that a lot > of past developers have dropped out-of-contact. This means that trying > to change the licence or any legal issues pertaining to the copyright > of the code could become a lot more difficult if those developers > cannot be contacted for any reason - especially if a decision is made > with the licence of the code that they do not agree to retroactively. > How often do we intend to change the license anyway? Sure, it would be better to have a organization that could handle legal conflicts, but I'm not sure whether that this is really needed for a project of this scope. Transferring your copyrights to a foundation is not really easy either. It requires a signed contract that must be delivered by mail (note the missing e) and we would need someone to collect them and store them safely. > > The OpenCompositing Foundation [or whatever we want to call it] would > be run the Compiz Council as it stands - which should be re-elected at > certain time-periods to reflect the people who are really running the > show [As I'll address in my next mail to the list] > Creating such a foundation is not really straight forward. First of all, our developers or former-developers are scattered all over the world. We would need to choose a specific country for this foundation and depending on the local law the administration of such a foundation is not trivial. For example KDE is a e.V., the German version of a non profit foundation. The German law it rather specific when it comes to regulations of this organizations. For example you need at least 7 people (present at the first meeting) to create such a e.V. and you need to pass internal rules and elect a committee etc. I'm not sure how complicated this is in the US, but probably we would need legal assistance in form of a lawyer. Thus, I think creating a own foundation is not really an option, unless a significant amount of people are willing to spend a lot of time on this. Regards, Patrick _______________________________________________ Dev mailing list [email protected] http://lists.compiz-fusion.org/mailman/listinfo/dev
