if your advisor understands what you are contributing and is
comfortable with it, you probably don't need to worry about it. It can
always be said that your contributions are done on your own time, etc.
The only way you may need to be concerned with anything is if LilyPond
suddenly becomes a multi-million dollar business AND the university
notices AND they want to take the time to see what your contribution
was.
In other words, many universities have these kinds of guidelines, but
they aren't to go after you as you contribute to your field of work. I
have even won awards on works produced as I was a grad student, and
the university didn't concern itself with it... but, what is important
to know is that everything you do is copyrightable by you. I just
can't use the code and claim it as mine - there MUST be
acknowledgement about where the source comes from. Even in an open-
source project.
Congrats on your acceptance! I forgot to mention that in my first email.
Josh
On Mar 18, 2009, at 8:21 AM, Graham Percival wrote:
On Wed, Mar 18, 2009 at 07:57:35AM -0700, Josh Parmenter wrote:
On Mar 18, 2009, at 7:24 AM, Graham Percival wrote:
If I don't produce any copyrightable source code, then its
ownership can't be in question, right?)
Why isn't the code copyrightable?
Because I don't write it in the first place. :)
It IS copyrightable, but the open-source license lays out under what
terms others can use it.
Yes, but I can only place source code under an open-source license
if I own that code. If I'm working under a contract that states
that the university owns everything[1] I do -- which I /am/ --
then I cannot make anything open-source.
[1] everything created "with university resources" or "that is
significantly similar to their university duties" (those are
paraphrases, not exact quotes)
Right now, if there's any question whether music notation is
"significantly similar" to the computer music research I'm doing
(they actually *aren't* similar, but I'm not certain that a
university administrator would realize this), then the university
can only lay claim to emails like this one. Big deal. It's not
like Valentin can retroactively not act upon my suggestions. :)
However, if I were to write code for lilypond and any legal issues
arose, then the lilypond project might be in trouble. At the very
least, we'd need to remove whatever features I added or bugs I
fixed.
That's why I'll start as a Frog after I leave this job, and not
before. :)
Cheers,
- Graham
******************************************
/* Joshua D. Parmenter
http://www.realizedsound.net/josh/
“Every composer – at all times and in all cases – gives his own
interpretation of how modern society is structured: whether actively
or passively, consciously or unconsciously, he makes choices in this
regard. He may be conservative or he may subject himself to continual
renewal; or he may strive for a revolutionary, historical or social
palingenesis." - Luigi Nono
*/
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