On 15.02.2012 01:29, Landon Blake wrote: > Michael wrote: "About copyright, I agree that the code base does not > follow clear > rules and it would need a serious clean up, but I can't see clearly > what the real problem is and why we should have to waive our > copyright to an organization to be serious. > > I'm pretty attached to copyright, because I feel like having my > name associated with the code I wrote is about the only way to > get a little recognition for the work in the long run." > > I'll admit I'm no expert on copyright and licensing law. At a minimum,
who is? hands up if you're the real patent lawyer ;) > if people are concerned about copyright, we should probably do a > better job of tracking who does what to which class. If I change a we should right, but we simply have no infrastructure to do so and it is btw. _not_ necessary for gpl based code because of the gpl's viral effect. > method in a class, do I own the copyright to that method? What if the > method calls another method copyrighted by Stefan? How do our > copyright's impact the copyright of Vivid Solutions on the original > class? What if Ede rewrites my method? How much of a rewrite is needed > to make the method subject to his copyright and not mine? What if the > method does basically the same thing, but in a slightly different way? that's all interesting but leading away from the issue: the difference between copyright and licensing. even if i hold the copyright on some code, if i licensed it under GPL to somebody i lost control over it as long the licensee honors the GPL terms. so there is no need to waive anything. > > This all gets cloudy pretty fast. I believe that is why most > organizations that can afford the legal advice ask for a copyright > waiver. bigger projects/organization often like you to waive so they can act as copyright holder in legal disputes. that's fine but no help to us at all as we would need all contributors to OJ codebase have to sign a waiver which is impossible as we wouldn't probably know all or find a contact to everybody. > If we had done this in the beginning, there would only be one > copyright holder to worry about, Vivid Solutions. yep, but we didn't and so it is. > At the end of the day, it probably doesn't matter a great deal, > because we've gotten so many contributions over the years from so many > people that are no longer involved in the project. I have no idea how > you would get all of them to waive copyright. (Can you quite title to > code copy right retroactively?) exactly my point. > > Anyhow, I think adding our own personal copyright statements to > headers of source code files is a bad practice. But that is just my 1 > cent. :] I'll keep contributing to OpenJUMP either way. see my other mail about that. > Michael wrote: "I've sometimes wondered if it wouldn't be necessary to > create the > OpenJUMP project on sourceforge or on other forges, because > it would be confusing if someone else decided to create an > OpenJUMP project now..." > > Now you are talking about trademark protection. Again, this is > something a more formal non-profit would handle. We'd need to elect > some directors of the non-profit, who would decide how the trademark > could be used. For example, my old "OpenJUMP Blog" might not be > allowed. :] > > Not sure this is even necessary. Probably isn't going to be a huge > conspiracy to steal the OpenJUMP name anytime soon. But it seems like > a topic we have both thought about. > > Your comments are appreciated. My point is that there is a right way > to handle copyrights and trademarks, and a wrong way. If we want to do > it, we should do it the right way. let's not overengineer here. of course we could trademark the name, like somebody bought/pays for openjump.org ... but to what necessity. if someone really want's to sue away JPP or OpenJUMP, this someone probably will succeed and we simply use another one, the name is not our capital, the product is. imho. > > If we were curious, I can ask someone at the Free Software Conservancy > if they could talk to us about the issues. As I mentioned before, I'm > no expert. > > I'd love to see the JPP or OpenJUMP as an OSGeo Project, which would > take care of these issues. That is a lot of work though. FYI: OSGeo > expects projects to set-up a system for dealing with code copyright > and to have rules and a governing body to handle questions about > things like trademarks. let's keep it KISS ... maybe if someday a company sponsor or such decides to come on board it would be a good idea to formalize more. for now, KISS ;) ..ede > > Landon > > 2012/2/14 Michaël Michaud <[email protected]>: >> Hi Landon, >> >> Many things in your mail. >> >> I remember that OpenJUMP name came after JPP was created. >> I've sometimes wondered if it wouldn't be necessary to create the >> OpenJUMP project on sourceforge or on other forges, because >> it would be confusing if someone else decided to create an >> OpenJUMP project now... >> >> About copyright, I agree that the code base does not follow clear >> rules and it would need a serious clean up, but I can't see clearly >> what the real problem is and why we should have to waive our >> copyright to an organization to be serious. >> >> I'm pretty attached to copyright, because I feel like having my >> name associated with the code I wrote is about the only way to >> get a little recognition for the work in the long run. >> >> Morover, I think OpenJUMP is still very small to spend time in >> administration tasks. But it can change quickly. So, let's see >> what will happen this year. >> >> And let's hear Stefan, Ede and other members. >> As far as licensing is concerned, I'm afraid my 2 cents is only 1 cent. >> >> Michaël >> >>> First I want to talk about JPP versus OpenJUMP. Then I want to talk >>> about copyright on OJ code. >>> >>> I'm still kind of attached to the Jump Pilot Project name, since >>> that's what we used long ago when this all got started. I think it is >>> important to remember that the Jump Pilot Project is technically the >>> software project set-up to coordinate work on a number of JUMP forks. >>> I view OpenJUMP as the product of that software project, not the >>> project itself. That may not seem like an important distinction, but I >>> could see the JUMP Pilot Project being set-up at some future point to >>> help maintain JTS or JCS or other software related to OpenJUMP. For >>> many months I've wanted to use some of the JUMP code to set-up a >>> Geotools like library for OpenJUMP's simple feature model, which is >>> simply the best I've ever seen implemented in code. I haven't had the >>> time to do that yet, but I can see that being another product of the >>> JPP. >>> >>> Apache is the organization that produces the Ant build tool. In a >>> similar way, the JPP produces OpenJUMP. If you've been around long >>> enough, you'll remember when we had the JPP, but OpenJUMP was just had >>> a code base without a name. :] I know not everyone involved in >>> development now has been around long enough to know all this, but I do >>> think they are important details. >>> >>> As far as the copyright notice goes, I think we are a little bit >>> sloppy with how we handle it. I'd prefer not to have a copyright >>> notice at all, rather than a copyright notice done improperly. This >>> get's especially tricky in OpenJUMP since we can have so many >>> contributors working on a single class. >>> >>> It seems like most serious open source projects make you sign a >>> copyright waiver before you contribute code. That is how I would >>> prefer we handle copyright:You waive your copyright to contribute. If >>> that makes people uncomfortable, I think we should have an opt-out >>> system for copyright waiver. In this scenario you would specifically >>> reserve copyright when you think your code is important and unique >>> enough. We'd then have to track that. FYI: This sort of system will >>> make it easier if we ever decide to formalize OpenJUMP as a >>> non-profit. >>> >>> If we really want to handle this properly we should think about making >>> OpenJUMP an OSGeo project or making the JPP a project of the Free >>> Software Conservancy (http://sfconservancy.org/). I made the SurveyOS >>> Project part of the Conservancy a while back, and they are good folks. >>> This means they hold copyright to my code, offer some legal protection >>> in the advent of a patent infringement lawsuit (or something similar), >>> and can go after people who use the SurveyOS code and violate the GPL. >>> >>> If there is real interest in handling copyright properly, we should >>> elect three or four people to the development committee and have them >>> research our options. I'm willing to help the committee with the >>> administration of this efffort, because I think it is important. >>> >>> Landon >>> >>> >>> On Sun, Jan 29, 2012 at 4:14 AM,<[email protected]> wrote: >>>> On 29.01.2012 01:10, Stefan Steiniger wrote: >>>>> Hei all developers, >>>>> >>>>> while answering on an email on the JTS list, I saw that for >>>>> DeleteDublicateGeometries I am still carrying the copyright although the >>>>> class was changed by others (see the header below). >>>>> >>>>> However, for the test-class it was used: >>>>> >>>>> Copyright (C) 2012 The JUMP/OpenJUMP contributors >>>>> >>>>> for those who do not know: keeping the copyright notice apart from the >>>>> license notice allows the author to reuse code later in another product >>>>> ... you never know ;) >>>> this is plain wrong. a proper copyright notice merely enables you to >>>> contact all authors in case you need to (mostly relicensing). >>>> >>>>> (And this has been important for ISA and will be >>>>> probably for the ADBToolbox makers) >>>>> >>>>> http://www.majordojo.com/2010/07/license-vs-copyright.php >>>> this merely explains the difference between license and copyright, which >>>> is there and will always be. >>>> >>>> to put it simple: >>>> >>>> by contributing under GPL every copyright owner grants the permission to >>>> use and modify freely. he in a way waives his rights for usage under the >>>> terms of GPL. so if somebody reuses the code under GPL this somebody does >>>> not need permision or even know the copyright holder. >>>> >>>> a bit more precise: >>>> >>>> every contributor owns the copyright (intellectual ownership) to the code >>>> contributed (if created by themselves). interestingly, this copyright >>>> actually cannot be sold according to german law but other countries like >>>> USA allow this. germany allows the sale of all exploitation rights though. >>>> >>>> by contributing to a GPL project, the code usually bases on other code of >>>> the GPL project, hence the contribution falls automatically under GPL. if >>>> this is not the case the contributor should be asked to explicitly license >>>> the contribution accordingly. if not done the contribution could be "taken >>>> away" again at any time by the copyright holder. >>>> >>>> having cleared that (re-)usage under the GPL is always fine there is the >>>> other case. >>>> but reusage in a nonGPL scenario is a totally different issue. you have to >>>> ask each and every of the original authors (copyright holder) permission >>>> to relicense their work. if cannot get one or two permissions you might be >>>> lucky to be able to extract their parts. very often you might not be able >>>> to contact everybody because the project is so old and had so many >>>> contributors that you will likely have copyrighted work for that you don't >>>> know the owner by name. >>>> >>>> in conclusion: it is not about the product you want to reuse the code but >>>> the license the product is under ;) >>>> >>>> regards ede >>>> >>>> PS: regarding the notice in the source. i don't care. i would rather call >>>> us openjump team now instead of jump pilot, but that's personal >>>> preference. generally we should update all java source headers some time >>>> and we could do it then. for my contributions i _only_ take the effort to >>>> add my copyright if the chunks are big enough. mainly whole classes or >>>> extensions. >>>> >>>> >>>> >>>> >>>> ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ >>>> Try before you buy = See our experts in action! >>>> The most comprehensive online learning library for Microsoft developers >>>> is just $99.99! 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Free future releases when you subscribe now! >> http://p.sf.net/sfu/learndevnow-d2d >> _______________________________________________ >> Jump-pilot-devel mailing list >> [email protected] >> https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/jump-pilot-devel > > ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ > Virtualization & Cloud Management Using Capacity Planning > Cloud computing makes use of virtualization - but cloud computing > also focuses on allowing computing to be delivered as a service. > http://www.accelacomm.com/jaw/sfnl/114/51521223/ > _______________________________________________ > Jump-pilot-devel mailing list > [email protected] > https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/jump-pilot-devel ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Virtualization & Cloud Management Using Capacity Planning Cloud computing makes use of virtualization - but cloud computing also focuses on allowing computing to be delivered as a service. http://www.accelacomm.com/jaw/sfnl/114/51521223/ _______________________________________________ Jump-pilot-devel mailing list [email protected] https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/jump-pilot-devel
